Spectre Caius Vakarian
by PiscesMel12
Summary: Sequel to Caius Vakarian. Caius is finally a Spectre and with a new threat blooming over the galaxy, he'll have to work with some unlikely allies.
1. Council Meeting

What the hell did the council want now? Caius sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. He had just gotten back from a long six month mission involving some batarian pirates and an important Prothean artifact. With missions that long Caius usually gave himself the privilege of having a nice long and peaceful sleep in his apartment without a care in the world. So when his omni tool beeped with a message from the council wanting a meeting after only sleeping for six hours he was more than grumpy. Just to piss them off and to visit a friend he arrived at an apartment complex and pressed the buzzer.

"Yes?" Caius smirked at the camera.

"Rila I'm hurt that you don't recognize me."

"Oh Caius! Come on in." Caius chuckled as entered the complex. Upon entering her apartment he was tackled by a small asari.

"Uncle Caius!" Caius smiled as hugged the little asari close.

"Hey Kania, how's my favorite engineer hm?" Kania giggled.

"Great! I built the model ship you gave me, let me show you!" She scrambled off of him and when he stood up she grabbed his hand and pulled him to her room. Caius shrugged when he passed by Rila who was chuckling at the whole encounter. Once they were in her room she pointed at one of her many shelves that housed all types of ships.

"See! All by myself!" Kania said proudly as Caius inspected it with a humm.

"Impressive, you'll be the best engineer in the whole galaxy at this rate." Kania smiled broadly.

"You really think so?" Caius nodded as he sat down next to her.

"Of course, it reminds of how your dad built them. The technique he used was the same as yours." The three-year-old asari beamed before climbing on to his lap.

"Can you take me to the park and to your ship?" Caius purred.

"I can't right now I have a meeting with the council." Kania frowned.

"But you just got back." Caius sighed as he rubbed her head.

"I know and that's exactly what I said but as a Spectre it's part of my job to report to the council. If it's not too long maybe afterward we can go okay?" Kania nodded and touched his mandible.

"Not if you're too tired, you need your sleep. Mommy said we all need at least eight hours and I know you only got six." Caius chuckled and hummed.

" How did you know?" She smiled.

"You always let us know when your back but I know that you immediately go to sleep so you're not grumpy. If you don't count the time it takes you to get to your apartment which is about fifteen minutes from the dock and to here which is about five minutes. Oh! And the time it takes you to get ready which is twenty that was about six hours ago." Caius brow plates arched in surprise and he looked over at Rila who was standing in the doorway.

"Have you been feeding her some kind of super smart fruit?" Rila laughed and shook her head.  
"Nope and it looks like I don't need to if I ever find one. Plus lunch is ready Kania. Do you want something too Caius?" He shook his head as he stood up and picked up Kania.

"Not a meal but I probably take a snack with me before I go so I don't pass out in the meeting." Placing Kania on his shoulders he walked out of the room with the giggling asari that was holding onto his fringe.

"I spared a few cookies for you that we made yesterday. They're over there!" Kania pointed at the counter and before he could reach for one she pulled on his fringe.

"No! Not yet! You have to eat a bite of my food first so you can have a little bit of a meal first! Dessert afterward!" Caius had winced at the pull but chuckled as he placed her down to grab a fork.

"Wait! I want to do it!" Caius hummed as he gave her the fork. Kania rushed over to her plate and picked up a chunk of meat with some kind of orange gravy on it and held it up to him expectantly. Caius purred as he took the fork.

"Thank you my dear" She giggled as he quickly ate the meat before the gravy dripped onto the floor. Rila smiled when Caius hummed at how tasty it was and started munching on the cookies.

"What did the council want?" Rila asked and Caius shrugged.

"I'm not sure but it better important if they're willing to wake me out of my slumber" He huffed as he finished off another cookie and Rila chuckled. Caius hummed as he took out a credit chip. Seeing this Rila shook her head.

"No Caius you already have given me-" Caius planted his hand over her mouth with a smirk.

"Now how many times have we've been over this hm?" As he removed his hand Rila sighed and accepted the chip reluctantly.

"Thank you…" Caius smiled before he checked the time on his omni tool.

"You are most welcome. I should head out now so the council won't be that angry that I'm a little late." He felt a tug on his hand and he looked down to see Kania.

"It's okay if we can't go to the park but I really want to…" With a smile Caius picked her up.

"I'll do everything I can to make sure we can go to the park and grab ice cream afterward" Kania beamed before she looked down at her hands.

"C-can I have a goodbye kiss? On the cheek?" She said shyly and Caius chuckled.

"Turians don't really kiss but just for you, I'll do it" He pressed his mouth plates to her cheek for a few moments before pulling back. The little asari's face blushed dark blue as she gave him a shy smile.

"Thank you Uncle Caius" He winked at her causing her to blush even more before setting her down. Rila laughed at that before she hugged Caius.

"Stay safe out there"

"I will, I'll see you around if the council has some mercy on me." Rila chuckled and Caius gave them a wave goodbye which Kania returned eagerly before leaving.

"So what did you call us here for?" Caius heard a familiar impatient voice as he walked up to where the meeting was held.

"We will tell you when-ah Spectre Vakarian. I'm glad you finally decided to show up" The salarian councilor said in an annoyed tone. Caius then saw his mother turn around along with his father and they looked at each other in confusion.

"I can understand the confusion but there's a reason we called all three of you here despite your...relations." The turian counciler drawled before the asari counciler continued.

"There have been a series of attacks against asari colonies. We thought they were either pirates or slavers but they seem to be too organized for. They don't take anything, only killing certain asaris before vanishing."

"We understand if you're hesitant about the importance of this investigation seeing as it's only targeting one race but with its type of organization and methods we feel it might be bigger. While working together we trust that you will be professional. The main reason we're disregarding that your family ties are because Commander you stopped the Reapers. Caius Vakarian is one of our best Spectres so your connections might prove to be an advantage."

"Do you have any leads at least?" Caius asked as he crossed his arms and the salarian answered.

"There has been some activity in the terminus systems that doens't follow the pattern of a typical pirate ship. It would be best to start there, other than that we don't have anything else since they typical vanish after their attacks."

"Alright;" Jane answered before the asari spoke.

"If we have any other leads we will contact you. This meeting is adjourned." As the councilors turned to walk away Jane smirked at her son.  
"Caius I didn't raise you to be late to anything." Caius sighed dramatically.

"I personally call it fashionably late, plus that was my middle finger to them for waking me up after just got back from a mission that took half a year away from me." His parents snickered at that before Caius continued.

"On a more serious note. I suggest we take your Normandy since my crew deserve as much of a break as much as I do. How long do you think it will take to get everything prepared." Jane thought for a moment before answering.

"Two days at the most, it's been about a year since I was on the last mission so it will take some time to gather back the crew and to stock up." Caius hummed.

"We can split gathering the resources. I won't let you take all the credit just because it's your ship" He teased and Jane laughed.

"That would be one less of a headache for me so thank you. I'll send you what we'll need later on.'' Caius nodded before Garrus hummed.

"I'm assuming you have plans if you took a detour before coming here?"

"Yes I visited Kania and I promised her that I would take her to the park if the meeting ended early.'" Jane began to push him to go.

"You better go now. I know from experience how impatient children can be." Caius purred.

"What are you talking about? I was an angel." Garrus snorted.

"Sure you were, now go on to that sweet little girl before a turian passes out by hearing how much you're lying right now." Caius snickered as he walked down the steps, he was tired as hell but he was determined to keep his promise to Kania.

"Looks like it's going to be an exciting year Kanus so I hope you're ready." He hummed while glancing down at the orange gem as he stepped into the elevator. Letting out a tired sigh as he pressed the button to go down. Oh, it was going to be an exciting year indeed.


	2. And So it Begins

"Do we have everything we need?" Jane asked as she walked side by side with Caius.

"We have the additional shipment coming in so I'm waiting for them to be almost done before going down there and checking them off." Jane nodded as they headed toward the cockpit.  
"How does everything look Joker?"

"All set, just waiting for the rest of the crew and for all our shipments. It will be easier to manage the ship without having Caius scrambling around pressing every button." Caius scoffed and crossed his arms.

"That was when I was seven, I'm surprised you still remember that given how old you are."

"Anything that happens on the Normandy I'll remember. How could you not when it has a lot of eventful memories. Saren, the Collectors, and the Reapers…"

"We get it Joker" Jane commented with an amusement roll of her eyes. "I know you're not going to like this but we hired another pilot to help you fly the Normandy." Joker groaned.

"Again? I thought the message was clear that I don't need any help." Jane shook her head.

"Yes you do, not even the best pilot in the galaxy could fly this thing alone, you need at least one other person. Don't worry she's also an engineer so she won't be with you all the time. Oh, and speak of the devil." Caius turned with his mother to see a small, beige plated turian female walking over to the cockpit. Her white clan markings only covered the bridge of her nose and her cheeks like his. Her hazel eyes had a brightness to them, other than that she was pretty plain by turian standards.

"Good to see you Lana Ramis, came in just as I was telling Joker here about you." Lana smiled in amusement as they shook hands.

"Commander, glad I decided to come here thirty minutes early." Lana turned to shake his hand.

"Caius Vakarian, pleasure to meet you Lana. Don't mind Joker if he gives you a hard time. He's overly attached to the ship."

"I heard that" Joker drawled, the girls chuckled when Caius turned his head over to Joker.

"You were meant to. Here let me make sure you heard everything." Walking over to Joker he cupped his hands around his mandibles so his voice would be louder.

"Your overly attached to the ship! You need to get your ass up and walk around for a bit or you'll be stuck to that chair forever!" Joker glared at him while he covered his left ear.

"Thank you for making my ears bleed," Caius smirked.

"All the more reason to get you ass up and walk to the med bay."

"Sir, we have the list of all our resources here just as we're finishing up as you requested." A crewman gave Caius a datapad and he hummed as he looked it over.

"Good" He glanced at the two women "Duty calls, I'll be in the shuttle bay if anyone needs me. I'll send you a detailed report of our stocks when I'm done Commander." Jane gave him a nod before Caius headed over to the elevator to head to the cargo bay.

"Does he paint his fringe like that?" Lana asked and Jane chuckled before shaking her head.

"No, he was born like that."

"How did you know?"

"He's my son." Lana's eyes widened.

"Oh! Commander I meant no disrespect." Jane gave her a reassuring smile.

"It's alright. A lot of people ask that question."

"Must get pretty annoying after a while."

"It does but he never shows it. It's like when people ask me if I'm Commander Shepard that destroyed the Reapers." Lana chuckled.

"True."

While Caius was looking over the datapad and checking off the present resources he saw his father under the mako in the corner of his eye. Chuckling he went over to him.

"You're already getting started on the mako?" Garrus slid out from under the mako with a firm nod.

"I have to make sure it's up to it's maxed protection so it can handle your mother's driving." Caius arched a brow plate at him.

"Is it really that bad?"

"It made Wrex want to puke afterward."

"Point taken but why don't you drive it then if it's that bad." Garrus sighed

"Because it's human made, although when I heard I was coming on this mission I did some extensive research so I can drive it properly. It didn't look too difficult so all that's left is to beat her to the mako."

"Well, that should be easy since your legs are longer."

"True but when your mother sees the mako and knows she's going to drive it. She's faster than a sniper bullet."

"Damn, better start working on the treadmill then. Your old ass is going to affect our chances so start exercising."

"Very funny Caius."

"I think I see a chip in your plates right here" Caius pointed to his scared face and Garrus huffed.

"First of all, your mother loves my scars, very much. Second, get back to your inventory checks before I kick your ass." Garrus kicked his son's foot to empathize his point before sliding back under the mako. Snickering, Caius looked back down at his datapad and continued to check off the resources before he heard a booming voice.

"Pyjak!" Caius turned his head to see Wrex walking over to him.

"Uncle Wrex! What are you doing here?" Caius greeted him with a hug.

"Well, the krogan think we should have a spot on the council. So Bakara practically threw me out to make arrangements with the council." Caius raised his brow plates in surprise.

"They're actually thinking about allowing a krogan into their ranks?" Wrex nodded.

"Yes, with Shepard's help we manage to convince them that we should be allowed because of how we helped the turians in the Reaper War and the salarians with the Rachni War. They want to see how the krogan will handle this mission before making a final decision so I brought myself and a few other krogan here. Their words not mine." Wrex grumbled and Caius chuckled.

"I thought you would be more happy about this?"

"I am but I hate politics, most of us do. We're lucky that there are some candidates for that position since it sure as hell won't be me. Give me a shotgun and something to shoot and I'll be happy." Caius laughed.

"And what does Bakara say about that?" Wrex sighed.

"She says I need to work on my temper and actually use my head." Caius snickered.

"You're so whipped''

"Hey! Wait until a special female comes into your life then we can talk."

"Wrex is right on this one" Garrus commented when he walked up to them. "You feel like a tough guy now but that goes out the window when your mate comes into your life." Caius snorted.

"That will be years from now and I've seen your whipped moments 'tough guy'."

"You think that was bad? It was worse when your mother was pregnant with you" he scratched his head "She went through so many emotions...one minute she was happy and the next she would be crying over a chocolate commercial. Then when she was in labor she tried to dislocate my mandible, the scared one." Caius eyes widened.

"The hell, why?" Garrus sighed.

"As your mother put it, I was the reason she was in this much pain and therefore I should experience what it feels like in the closest way possible," Wrex grumbled.

"With Bakara, it wasn't the emotions it was more like the eating. She would eat her meal and then steal mine. If I so much as muttered she would give me her death glare and then steal all my snacks." Caius shook his head.

"Yep it's official, I'm going to be waiting a long time before I even think about mating." Both of the males snorted.

"You don't get to choose that, the galaxy doesn't care when you want it and I have a feeling it's going to happen to you soon." Garrus commented and Caius hummed.

"Uh huh" Caius ignored their warning before he continued with checking off on the datapad.

After an hour Caius had finally finished the tedious task and headed back up to deck two.

"Everything is accounted for" Caius hummed as he handed his mother the datapad. Jane nodded as she looked it over before glancing at Joker.

"We're ready to leave Joker."

"Alright Commander." Joker and Lana began working together to bring the Normandy out of the dock and into space.

"Now we just need to figure out our next step. The council didn't exactly give us a solid lead." Jane sighed and Caius thought for a moment before answering.

"We could head to Omega, whoever they are would have to stock up there since that's basically the capital in the terminus systems. Aria might know something since that's her space station apparently." Jane nodded.

"Doesn't hurt to start there, I'll set the course for Omega." Jane turned to leave and once the Normandy was set in its smooth course Lana turned to him.

"Spectre Vakarian you wouldn't happen to have gotten a silver crate would you?''

"Yeah but there was no name or info on it so we took it out."

"What?!" Lana trilled as she quickly stood up "That had a lot of tech equipment that I ordered!"

"How was I supposed to know that it was yours when there was no name on it?"

"You could have asked around Caius!"

"Does it look like I have time to ask everyone on this ship Lana?!" Caius growled and Lana growled back.

"You could have made some kind of announcement!"

"First of all! With no name or info it looked really suspicious! For all I know it could've been some kind of bomb! I wasn't willing to risk my crew over a stupid shipment! Second! You should be mad at the company who sent it out with their incompetence to put a name on it!" Lana sighed in frustration and rubbed her face.

"This is getting nowhere, I'm going to the main battery." Caius huffed as she stormed past him.

"Yeah because you know I'm right!"

"Shut up Caius!" Caius crossed arms and snapped at Joker when he was smirking at him.

"What?!"

"You two are perfect for each other."

"Shut up Joker."


	3. Omega

"Ah doesn't this bring back some memories" Garrus commented as they exited the Normandy and on Omega.

"Try not to eat another missile dad" Caius hummed and Garrus scoffed.

"I wasn't trying to the first time! Anyway, what's the plan here?"

"Wrex and I can go talk to Aria and see if she has any useful information. You guys can check the markets and ask the merchants if they received any large shipments of supplies. It wouldn't hurt to try the black market either, I assume you know where that is dad. Given the fact you were here for two years." Garrus looked away innocently.

"Maybe…" Jane widened her eyes at her husband.

"Are you serious Garrus?! I could've gotten some nice armor for the suicide mission!"

"You survived just fine."  
"Yeah but that could've prevented some scars" Jane grumbled and Garrus wrapped his arm around her lovingly.

"But I like your scars, it shows your endurance and how you somehow manage to beat the odds." Jane smiled at his compliment and Caius turned away to pretend to gag while Wrex groaned.

"Save it for the bedroom, you can go at it like a couple of varren later. I want to get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible."

"Bad memories Wrex?" Caius smirked and Wrex rubbed his face.

"Yes and I really don't want to talk about it pijak so let's get on with this."

"We should, I like your plan Caius so meet you here in an hour?" Jane asked and Caius nodded.

"Sounds good."

They split up, Caius and Wrex heading into the Afterlife. They hadn't even taken two steps before a batarian approached them.

"Aria is expecting you"

"Good, makes my job a lot easier" Caius hummed and followed the batarian to Aria's spot in Afterlife. Caius sat on the corner of the couch near her before Wrex sat next to him.

"So what's the youngest Spectre and first human Spectre doing here on Omega?" Aria asked and Caius relaxed on the couch before answering.

"There's been some recent attacks against asari colonies by a very organized group. It looks like they're hanging out in the terminus systems now so I was wondering if you noticed anything. Since Omega is pretty much the only place they could restock at." Aria chuckled.

"You're lucky I'm in a good mood and your not bad looking for a turian so I'll tell you what I know." Aria fully turned to him before speaking.

"They arrived here a few days ago, their ship was odd but I didn't think much of it until they started to stir up trouble on my station. They began to kill asaris around the station, including some of my strippers here. Then they vanished once they had everything they needed." She brought up her omni tool.

"This is the model of the ship" She showed him a picture and Caius frowned at it.

"The ship looks like turian design but there are some added features that I don't recognize." Aria nodded before she put her omni tool down.

"They messed with my station and are targeting my species, I'll cooperate with helping you but I don't want it to be traced back to me, Barbar, Trey." She called and a batarian with a distinctive golden yellow eye that corresponded to his other dark chestnut colored eyes stepped forward. Along with a turian that looked around his age that he swore looked familiar followed close behind the batarian.

"If you want more information from me you'll have to take these two with you. They'll be my messengers if you want to be dramatic. Plus Barbar here is a great mechanic so I'm doing you a favor." Caius crossed his arms.

"You do understand my hesitation?"

"Oh, I completely understand. I want them taken down just as much as you do. This can't be traced back to me and I need to make sure you won't screw me over. Just like I won't either because I happen to like these guys. We're on a mutual ground so take it or leave it.." Caius sat in deep thought before Wrex commented.

"I'll support you in whatever you choose pyjak. Know that we need this information if it's as serious as it sounds." Caius hummed and pondered over it for a few more moments before answering.

"Fine, but understand that if this backfires on me know that you will no longer be the 'queen' of Omega," Caius warned and Aria chuckled.

"I like that fire, truly a turn on." Caius rolled his eyes at her comment before he stood up and looked at Barbar and Trey.

"I suggest you get your stuff now, we'll be waiting for you outside of Afterlife." Caius turned and walked down the steps with a sigh.

"Don't worry little pyjak, I'll eat them if they so much as breath the wrong way." Caius chuckled as they exited Afterlife.

"Why do I feel like you'll actually go through with that promise?"

"Because I will, I still need to gain back the fifty pounds I lost from Bakara." Snickering, Caius leaned against the wall.

"Why? Does that contribute to your 'blood rage'?"

"Of course it does, more weight, more power to the charge." Wrex huffed and they both turned when they saw the batarian and the turian walk down the steps. Each carrying a bag of their necessities.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself, Caius Vakarian." He greeted while shaking their hands. "As you probably guessed this is Urdnot Wrex." Wrex narrowed his eyes at the newcomers and he growled.

"Do anything foolish that will jeopardize him or Shepard and I will eat your organs. Raw."

"You can't even cook them first?" Barbar mocked a hurt tone and Wrex glared at him.

"Won't have time when I rip out your heart."

"Easy Wrex, I feel touched you would go to that length for my mother and I," Caius commented as he patted Wrex on the shoulder and Trey's eyes widened slightly.

"Wait, your mother is Commander Shepard? The Commander Shepard?" Caius nodded as Wrex snorted.

"Of course he is, where do you think he got this from." Wrex gestured to his fiery red fringe. Caius could hear the slight fear from his sub vocals, before he could question him his parents walked into view.

"What did Aria tell you? Jane asked as she walked over to her son.

"There had been a ship here a few days ago, the ship looked to be mostly turian styled but there were other additions to it that made it more...unique." Garrus hummed in thought before gesturing to the two Blue Suns mercs.

"And what are they doing here?"

"Aria made a deal with me that she would provide me with updates and more info every time the ship docks at her station. In return that I take these two with me to be her messengers so it wouldn't trace back to her. Don't worry Wrex already threatened to eat them if they did anything wrong to me or mom."

"What about me?" Garrus asked in mock hurt and Wrex snorted.

"What about you?" Garrus crossed his arms.

"I've known you for a very long time."

"So? I like Shepard a lot more than you. Actually I like Caius a bit more than you Shepard. Sorry." Shepard raised her eyebrows.

"What? Why?"

"Because when I visited you in the hospital after you had Caius Garrus handed the newborn pyjak over to me to see him. This little pjak stared up at me for ten full seconds before he gave me a happy chirp. Not even a full grown krogan could have a staring contest with me like that." Jane glanced at her son.

"For real? Is that why you kept holding onto to him throughout the whole visit?" Wrex grumbled as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Maybe…"

"And because I'm so irresistible." Caius hummed and Garrus snorted.

"And where do you think you got your looks from hm?"

"I'll admit you have a part in it but remember" Caius pointed at himself before he continued. "I'm the upgraded version, the new toy that everyone wants to play with. Including a krogan."

"This is your fault Garrus" Jane commented with an amusement shake of her head and Garrus frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"Where do you think he got this big ego from?"

"I think I deserve it if I was able to…what's that human saying? Sweep you off your feet?" Garrus purred and Jane rolled her eyes in amusement.

"Great, I have two of my favorite turians with an ego the size of the Normandy." Wrex bellowed in laughter as the two Blue Suns chuckled in amusement at the whole encounter.

"Come on, let's go back to the Normandy so that we can talk in detail about this organization," Jane said and they all nodded in agreement before heading back to the Normandy.

Upon entering Caius bumped into Lana with both of them letting out an oof before glaring at each other.

"Watch it Vakarian I'm trying to work!" Lana huffed and Caius snorted.

"Well excuse me for wanting to get back into the Normandy away from that horrible station." This is how their conversations usually went. Ever since that first day they had been at each other's throats. This was nothing new to the crew, even his mother gave up on trying to resolve it because she thought it was hilarious.

"I'll be on my way, be sure to look where you're going" Caius rolled his eyes at her comment as they both turned to leave in the opposite direction. Until Caius felt a pull from his neck, causing him fall back suddenly and bump into Lana. They both lost their footing from the impact and tumbled to the ground. Somehow Lana landed on top of him and he glared up at her.

"Get the hell off of me!"

"I'm trying! Our necklaces are stuck together, idiot!" She growled and she tried to pull their necklaces apart. Caius trilled when she saw the way she was pulling at his orange gem necklace and grabbed her wrist.

"Be careful of my necklace!"

"What else would you have me do?!" She snapped.

"Wait wait! Let's try to move to an easier and less embarrassing position!" he growled and they both moved in different directions at the same time. Slipping again and Caius landed on top of her along with their necklaces getting more tangled. Now their faces were inches apart and he never felt so embarrassed in his whole life. The same was said for her by the way her subvocals were trilling in embarrassment.

"Caius!" She growled.

"I know I know!" He snapped as he tried to get off of her but didn't get far with their necklaces tangled and he slipped back to between her legs. Hearing to whole crew whistling and whooping made him feel even more mortified.

"Can someone help with this?!" He growled and Jane chuckled.

"We shouldn't come between destiny"

"What are you implying Commander?" Lana asked curiously and Jane made a heart with her hands.

"True love;" She said in a sing song voice and everyone laughed. Caius and Lana both growled.

"Let's get up at the same time okay?" Caius asked and Lana nodded. They both stood up but their cheeks were practically pressed up together. Hurting his neck like hell due to their height difference. They carefully worked together to remove both of their important necklaces without damaging them. As soon as their necklaces were pulled apart they both rushed away from each other. Lana heading to the main battery and Caius heading to his quarters, hearing the laughter from the crew as they both wished for a hole to swallow them up. Shutting the door behind him Caius rubbed his face. Glancing from his necklace and to the ceiling before he muttered.

"Very funny Kanus."

* * *

By the way huge thanks to Bloodwitch Raven for the new characters Barbar and Trey. Credit goes to her :)


	4. Interesting Night

Darkness. That's all Caius saw as he looked around him. He felt something wet on his hands and he looked down to see blue. Thinking that he hurt himself Caius looked down at his body but there was no indication that he had been harmed until when he noticed a trail of blue ahead of him leading to the corpse of Kanus. Rushing over to him Caius knelt down beside him and shook him.

"Kanus!" There was no answer though, no breaths and no heartbeat. He smelled more variations of blood and he looked around to see the bodies of everyone close to him. His family and even Rila and Kania. Voices whispered all around him.

"If you brought death to your best friend you're bound to bring it to everyone you love."

"It should've been you, then they wouldn't be in danger."

"You should have never come on this mission." Caius clutched his head.  
"Stop!" He pleaded but the voices continued.

"You know it deep inside don't you Caius?"

"It's your fault that Kania doesn't have a father."

"And it will be your fault when they all die!"

"NO!" Caius screamed and he startled awake, bolting upright as he felt sweat drip down his forehead. Caius looked around and sighed when he saw the familiar surroundings of his quarters and put his head in his hands. He's always had the nightmares ever since Kanus died but now. Not only have they become more frequent but more severe in their torment, this was the worse one yet. Caius looked at the time on his omni tool and groaned. He had only slept for three hours and he knew for sure that he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep now. Getting up Caius went to the shower room and since it was so early no one else was there. For once he let himself enjoy a longer shower since he was alone and it would be hours before someone else came to use it. Caius closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cool tile, enjoying how the water ran down his back for several minutes until he heard a soft curse. He turned his head to see Lana who had crossed her arms and was glaring at him. However, he didn't miss how she briefly ran an appreciative eye over him before snapping back into reality.

"Can you hurry up so I can shower?" Caius snorted, his mask put back on. Never revealing the troubles that lay beneath.

"You're more than welcome to. What? Never seen a naked male turian?" He teased and she stayed quiet. He could hear the embarrassment in her subvocals and he widened his eyes in realization.

"Wait you really haven't? You mean you're a vir-"

"Yes I am!" She snapped and shuffled her feet uncomfortably. Seeing his shoulders shake in silent laughter Lana growled.

"It's not funny! I just didn't have the time for it in boot camp okay?!" Caius raised his hands up in surrender.

"I'm not saying anything, just take your shower it's just me here."

"Exactly" Caius rolled his eyes and turned around.

"There happy? I'm almost done here anyway."

"Good' He heard her huff before hearing the rustling of clothes. Caius sighed softly and let the water hit his face. He smirked when he caught the scent of her arousal.

"Something exciting you Lana?" He purred and she hissed.

"It's just a natural reaction so don't let it get to your ego!"

"Totally understandable, given the fact of your...inexperience." He ducked when she threw a bar of soap at him. Chuckling he turned off the shower and dried himself before putting his clothes back on.

"I highly suggest taking a cold shower since I can smell that you're feeling some sexual tension." He caught another soap that she threw at him before tossing it back to her. The whole time she was here he made sure he didn't look at her, sure she was infuriating but didn't mean he was going to be a creep and look at her vulnerable form if she wasn't willing. A moral code his mother drilled into his head for as long as he could remember to respect women. Didn't matter what species they were. Heading back to his quarters he still knew he wouldn't get any shuteye so he passed the time by catching up on reports. A tedious task but it was better than sitting there, twiddling his thumbs as his mother would put it. Still, it was a great way to pass the time because when he checked the clock again on his terminal he knew everyone was up by now. Hearing the hiss of his door opening he turned to see his mother walking in.

"You're up early. Keep forgetting that I don't have to push you from the bed anymore." Caius chuckled.

"No my biological clock adjusted to this kind of life so it's now superb." Jane smiled and tilted her head curiously at him before she frowned.

"You didn't get much sleep didn't you?" It was more of a statement than a question and he sighed.

"No. I didn't but I'm fine."

"How many hours?"

"Mom…"

"How many?" She insisted and he rubbed his face.

"Three"

"Caius that's not healthy."

"I know but it doesn't happen all the time so it's no big deal. Besides, how did you know?"

"Because I know that look."

"What look?"

"That look a soldier gets when the battles start to haunt him. It was the same one I saw in the mirror during the Reaper War." Sadness flickered in her eyes for a brief moment at the memory.

"You want to talk about it?" Caius shook his head.

"No"

"But-"

"No mother, I'm just not ready yet." Jane sighed in defeat.

"Alright, but you should talk to someone about it. Eventually. I talked to your father during that time and he helped me the best he could. Without him...I probably would have lost my sanity."

"I will mom but I don't think I'll find that person anytime soon."

"Yes you will. If you let them get to know you they'll see what kind of a good man you are but you've built a wall. Ever since…" She didn't want to finish the sentence but she didn't have to. He knew what she meant and he closed his eyes in pain before standing up.

"After everyone has had their share of breakfast we should meet in the war room to discuss what we found on Omega. Aria had sent some new information that should prove useful." He said quietly before exiting the room, not waiting for a reply as he headed to the mess hall. Jane sighed, she was worried about her son but it wasn't like she could make him talk. She just hoped he would soon before his mind went to dark places.

* * *

In the war room, Caius brought up his omni tool to show them a hologram of the ship.

"This was the ship that Aria saw on her dock." Jane looked at it closely.

"Those thrusters...I recognize them on Alliance ships and the front it looks like salarian made."

"The style is mostly turian, whoever built this ship obviously has a lot of money and power if they're with other species to this extent," Garrus commented as looked at the front of the ship.

"And they have no problem working together apparently. This looks bad." Wrex sighed and Caius looked towards his parents.

"What did you find in the markets?" Jane sighed.

"We weren't able to get anything from the 'normal' markets but when we check the black market it was...unsettling."

"A friend of mine had told me that there had been a large shipment of bombs. Not just any either." Garrus brought up his omni tool and the hologram changed into what looked like to be a very advanced bomb. Caius cursed.

"Grenades look like toys compared to this thing. If they had a large shipment of these they must be planning to hit another colony."

"The question is which one is it? We still haven't found a pattern with all these assassinations." Jane said quietly and Caius looked at his father.

"Since you were with C-Sec you think you can find a pattern if I have Aria send me information about the deceased asari?" Garrus hummed.

"Of course, I didn't spend all those years with C-Sec for nothing." Joker then patched through over the intercom.

"Uh Commander, the asari councilor wants to speak with you and Caius. Urgently." Jane nodded.

"Alright, come on Caius." While Wrex and Garrus discussed the ship and the bombs Caius walked over to the comm link section with his mother.

"Patch her through Joker." Moments later the asari councilor appeared in a hologram form. Her usual cool and confident composer were lost by the fear in her eyes.

"They hit another colony, Nilia. The reports gruesome and this time they had used bombs. Not just any either...Please tell me you have something." Jane sighed softly.

"We had managed to find out what the ship looks like and about the large shipment of those bombs I'm assuming. I'm sorry that we didn't manage to save the colony in time." The asari councilor held up her hand.

"Don't be. This is a start at least and I know that both of you will do everything you can. I now know what the humans felt like when their colonies were being attacked. Twice now. This is a very rude awakening…" The asari shook her head and for once, Caius felt sympathetic towards the councilor.

"We can investigate Nilia and see if we find any clues or traces to what were dealing with exactly. It's obviously a very powerful organization." The asari nodded, Caius was glad he was able to at least make her feel a little better.

"Alright...yes that seems like the best option." She cleared her throat, her cool composer returning.

"I'll leave you to it Spectres. The council will expect a report soon. Good luck." She said quietly before the comm link was turn off. Caius never felt this amount of pressure as he did this moment.

"So this is what it feels like when an entire species is counting on you?"

"Horrible isn't it? At least it's not the galaxy but we can share this burden, together." Jane smiled and Caius returned it before he turned.

"Joker set a course to Nilia" Jane ordered.

"On it Commander." Jane sighed wistfully as she and Caius returned to the war room.

"I wonder if I could use the mako for Nilia." Wrex's eyes widened.

"What?" Jane explained the situation to them and when she finished Wrex shook his head.

"That's terrible but if you're using the mako there's no way in hell I'm going."Jane frowned.

"What? Why?"

"Shepard your driving is horrible, I felt so sick afterward I didn't even want to hold my shotgun."

"Yeah I'm not going either Jane" Garrus said with a shake of his head and Jane put her hands on her hips before huffing.

"Oh yes you are, if Wrex chooses not to go fine but you are definitely going." Garrus frowned.

"Why me?"  
"Because you're my husband and I said so."

"No winning there" Wrex muttered and Garrus sighed.

"Fine but Caius is going too." Caius snorted.

"Of course I am, I have no choice since I'm the second Spectre assigned this mission. Plus I think you guys are exaggerating."

"Oh, little pyjak you're going to regret those words as soon as Sheperd puts her foot on the peddle"Wrex groaned at the memory of being in the mako the last time. Caius rolled his eyes.

"While you guys whine over the mako I'm going to finish with my reports" Caius hummed before turning to leave the war room. Garrus sighed and thought of a plan to get to the mako first before his wife. If he didn't make it they were all very screwed. It would be another case of everyone fighting over the bathroom to vomit in once they returned to the Normandy.


	5. Nilia Part One

"Spirits I'm going to be sick"Caius groaned as the mako bounced over a bump. Garrus had almost made it to the mako before Jane but one kick to the spur from a very excited Jane and he was down. When Caius was helping him up Garrus had actually whimpered 'we're so screwed.' He couldn't be anymore right.

"Oh don't be such a baby, ugh this is taking too long." Jane turned the mako towards a mountain and Garrus let out a panicked trill.

"No! Please Jane just take the path ahead!"

"Commander please take path! It's a lot safer then this!" Lana trilled but Jane ignored them as she went up the steep mountain. Caius grabbed onto anything he could find as he prayed to the Spirits for a quick death.

"This will be fun! It's like going on a rollercoaster"

"This is like a rollercoaster?! I'll never get used to your culture Jane as much as I love you" Garrus grumbled and as they neared the top. Caius and Lana held on to each other subconsciously as the mako went down the mountain at incrediable speed. The turians in the mako screeched in pure terror as Jane held her arms up.

"Weeeeeee!" Jane yelled happily and the mako came to an abuprt halt which caused Caius's forehead to meet the back of Garrus's seat in a rather painful way. Cursing he rubbed his head and jolted when Jane hit another bump.

"Mom! Do you have to hit all the bumps here?!" Caius snapped and covered his mouth when he felt nauseous. Something all three turians were doing in the mako at the moment.

"It's not my fault they're there! Oh, a boulder, time for the thrusters!"

"NO!" Everyone trilled and they held on as the whole mako jolted. When it landed with bounce Caius swallowed the bile in his throat. He wanted to get out of here more anything and when she finally stopped the mako he sighed in relief.

"Oh, we're here by the way." As soon as the words left her lips Caius and Garrus fought over the door, pushing each other until they tumbled out with Lana hurriedly following behind. All sighing in relief as they laid on the ground, willing their stomachs to stop turning.

"You guys are exaggerating, it was fun!" Jane huffed and they all groaned in response.

"Let's just hurry up with the mission so I can die in peace later in my quarters by this nausea." Caius grumbled as he got up and the other two turians agreed with a sigh. Jane rolled her eyes.

"So dramatic." Looking at the blown up main building of Nilia it was still intact but looked rather unstable. It's architecture sophisticated just like the asari that built them.

"Everyone be careful, this place looks like it's about to give out." Caius commented as they entered the building. Lana immediately went over to a terminal and began hacking away for any info. Caius looked at the spots the explosions targeted and sighed.

"I can see how this killed so many asaris, the way it was set up." Caius sighed and his father hummed in argeement.

"They set this up to do maxium damage, they certainly acomplished that."

"I got something, some survailence footage." Lana called out to them and Caius began to make his way over. All the sudden the ground gave out from underneath her and she yelped before managing to catch onto the edge of the hole.

"Lana!" Caius trilled and rushed over to her, immediatly starting to pull her up until the ground gave out under his knees. He could hear his parents screaming their names as they fell through. After hitting a few objects on the way down they finally landed on solid ground. Caius groaned in pain and laid there for a few moments before sitting up, Lana was in the same prediciment but only wearing light armor she must have been in more pain than he was.

"Lana are you okay?" Caius asked worriedly which surprised her but she eventually answered.

"Yeah I'm fine since you took most of the impact so...thank you." She said quietly.

"Caius! Lana! Are you guys alright?!" Caius could tell that from her tone that she was a mother in distress, worried for her child.

"We're fine! Just keep looking around while we find a way out of here!" Caius called back and slowly got up. He held out a hand to Lana which she took gratefully and hoisted her up. She hissed in pain and she almost buckled but Caius held her up by her shoulders.

"What's wrong?"

"My left leg hit one of those objects and I don't think I got away unscathed." Caius sat her down on a nearby crate and kneeled down to look at her leg.

"T-that's not necessary, I'm fine really."

"Lana" Caius warned and she eventually huffed.

"Fine…" To her surprise he was quite gentle when he removed her boot and slid the cloth of her pant leg up enough to reveal a rather nasty bruise.

"I'm no doctor but I think you might of fractured it from the impact, I'll put some medigel on so that it can last you until we head back to the Normandy." Lana sighed softly at the fact as Caius gently put medigel on the bruise. When she winced he gave her an apologetic look.

"Sorry, I'm almost done so forgive me if I hurt you anymore;" He said softly before finishing up with the task at hand.

"No you're-wah!" Lana yelped when Caius scooped her up, carrying her like she weighed nothing as he looked around at their surroundings. Atomically wrapping her arms around his neck by pure instinct she shook her head.

"Caius this really isn't necessary. I can walk."

"No Lana. We don't know how badly you hurt your leg and I'm not taking any chances to hurt yourself more."

"But what if there's an enemy that you need to shoot?"  
"No one should be here other than us Lana. If you're that worried then have your gun out and you can shoot."

"But-" He looked at her with his piercing green eyes. Silently daring her to come up with another excuse with those damn beautiful eyes that should be illigel on a turian. Slumping her shoulders in defeat she sighed.

"Fine...thank you." Caius hummed in response, okay so maybe she did enjoy this a little. After all she did have a bit of a crush on him but she wouldn't fully admit that to him.

"...Get it open" Lana blinked and realized that he was talking to her while she was having fantasies with his deep and smooth voice.

"I'm sorry I was lost in thought. Can you repeat what you said?" He smirked before replying.

"I asked if you could get that gate open over there?"

"Yeah, that should be easy."

"Good" he hummed as he kicked a crate until it was in front of the door so she could sit while hacking through the door. Setting her down gently on the crate she sighed.

"You didn't have to go through all-" she stopped when he put a finger to her mouth plates.  
"Look I know that we started out rather badly and so take this as an apology from me okay? You hardly weigh anything at all so it's really no trouble."

"I don't know if I should take that as a complement or an insult."

"A compliment. At least that's the case from my experience with women. Well at least with my mother." Lana chuckled.

"Yeah alright, I'll let it slide this time Vakarian." She teased and Caius chuckled before he turned to sit back against the wall.

"I'll let you concentrate, I know how valuable that is to technicians." Lana hummed a reply before she set to work, her fingers flying over the red lock and in a couple minutes it turned green.

"Alright it's all set" When she didn't hear a response she looked over at him. About to call out his name but stopped when she noticed that he was asleep. She took the time to study his slump form against the wall. He was snoring softly and his mandibles fluttered slighty after each snore. She didn't have the heart to wake him so she let him sleep for a few minutes. Lana studied the lone scar across his cheek that cut through his colony markings and wondered if he had any other scars from previous battles, she had only seen the ones on his back when they were in the showers but she wondered in he had any in the front. Several minutes passed before she stood up and limped over to him. She still didn't want to wake him but they had to get moving so she gently knudged his shoulder.

"Caius…" she said softly and soon his green eyes appeared, yawning he rubbed his face before looking over at her.

"How long was I out? And you shouldn't be standing up" Caius scooped her up again once he was standing and she hummed.

"About ten minutes, I would've woken you up earlier but you looked like you needed it." Caius sighed softly

"Yeah, it helped so thank you.''

"So how long have you had the nightmares?"

"How do you know it's nightmares keeping me up? I could be just working on reports." It was her turn to give him the stare down and after a few silent moments he sighed in defeat.

"Alright, it's nightmares. I've had them for a few years."

"What are they about?" Caius shook his head.

"It's...complicated." Lana took that as a sign that he wasn't ready to talk so she changed the subject which he was grateful for.

"It looks like we're in some ruins, it's a mystery why the asari would build anything on it."

"It could be that they're hiding something important down here. It would explain the amount of bombs they placed all over the building to expose the ruins." Lana hummed in agreement and upon entering a large room Lana squirmed in his hold.

"I want to explore because if I stay still for another moment I'm going to go insane" Caius chuckled softly before letting her down gently.

"Alright just be careful and don't over do it."

"Yeah yeah;" she said absently as she limped over to a table, she picked up a datapad that was left there and frowned.

"I think my translator got a little busted up from the fall because it's not picking up the language."

"Let me see;" Caius said as he walked over to her. Holding it in his hand he hummed.

"Oh, it's English" Lana frowned.

"It sounds like you didn't pick that up from your translator?"

"That's because I didn't. Human mother remember?"

"Ah, do you know any other language besides Galactic Standard?"

"Yeah, Palvini, that, and English."

"Damn. Which one did you learn first?"

"Palvini since I'm a complety turian on the outside if you exclude the color of my eyes and fringe so it was only fair. Then I learned Galactic Standard in school and while learning that mom taught me English."

"Are you fluent in both of them?"

"Yep, when they gave me my translater at ten my parents made me turn it off at home. I still do it with mom since I've had plenty of practice with Palvini in boot camp. So sometimes we'll both turn off our translators and just have a regular conversation. She even gets the crew in on it." Lana laughed.

"Is that why the other day all the humans were shocked when you were speaking to them at the mess hall?" Caius snickered.

"Oh yeah, they didn't believe her so she made sure all their translators were off. Never seen her look so smug in my life." Lana laughed and Caius also laughed along with her. Until he covered her mouth with his hand and held her close as they moved behind a large pillar. She glared up at him and he pointed to the right with his head. Glancing to her right she saw a group of armed humans walking into the room and thats when Caius finally removed his hand.

"I'm going to a different spot to see if I can snipe them, stay here okay?" Caius whispered and Lana let out a low growl.

"You don't think I can take care of myself?" she whispered as Caius took out his pistol.

"I know you can with your feisty personality but you're in no condition to do so. If things go to hell then you can use your drones at any time but don't draw attention to yourself since you can't move from cover to cover with your leg like that." He whispered back to her calmly and she let out a small huff before he crouched down to flank the armed humans. Thanks to their senses not being as good as a turian or krogan he had the advantage of surprise.

"I don't know why we have to come back here it's pointless."

"It's not if he says it's here, do you want to knock the asari off their pedestal or not?"

"Course I do but I didn't expect to be chasing legends…" The humans continued to argue and Caius was almost to the spot he picked when he noticed one of the humans getting to close to where Lana was. Caius stopped and watched the human, a protective urge washed over him. The type he's never felt in his life and he let out a low growl. If he so much as took another step towards her he was going to-

Put a damn bullet in his head as Caius aimed at the human that was too close to her and fired without hesitation. Caius made sure to stay behind cover when they started to shoot at him and he wanted to smack himself for how stupid that was. He should have been in proper cover first before doing that and he didn't know why that strong urge to protect her had overcome him. He still felt it throughout his whole body and so he payed attention to the humans that were close to her. Which earned a bullet to skim his left shoulder and he saw blue drip down in the corner of his eyes. Not only did he not care but he couldn't feel it with the amount of ardeline rush in him.

After a few minutes of bullets flying a fighter drone came out to finish off the last of the humans and Caius stood out from cover when the coast was clear. Lana limped out and frowned at the spot he chose for cover.

"You were using that? What the hell is wrong with you?! You could have been killed! And look at your shoulder!" She scolded and Caius sighed as he glanced at his now blue shoulder.

"I don't know Lana. Something came over me and I can't explain it so just pretend this never happened."

"Fine but let me look at your shoulder."

"No."

"Oh no you don't! You looked at my leg so it's only fair I look at your shoulder!" Lana snorted as she put her hands on her hips.  
"But-"

"Shut up and sit down." She growled and they glared at each other for a few moments before Caius held his hands up in surrender.

"Alright I'm going" Caius grumbled to himself about women as he sat down on a bench. Lana chose to ignore his comments as she took off his left shoulder armor and began to apply medigel to the wound.

"It skimmed your shoulder luckily but it's probably going to scar."

"I think as a soldier in many battles you start to get used to that word." Lana chuckled and she decided to ask.

"Do you have any other scars? Besides the one on your cheek?" He nodded pointed at his chest.

"My biggest one is here. A varren got me good here so now there are three claw marks across my whole torso and it stops at my waist."

"Really? The one on your back looks pretty big." Caius smirked and glanced at her.

"Oh, so you were totally not checking me out in the shower?"

"No, it was pretty hard not to notice the gash there that looked like it hurt" Lana huffed. She rather dislocate her mandible then admit that she was actually treating her eyes with that eye candy of a body when they were both in the shower room.

"Uh huh, well it was from an assaisin and she used a...I think it's called a katana to parelyze me before finishing me off. Any deeper and she would have done just that."

"Spirits…"

"Yeah but luckily we tracked down her employer, a pathetic human but enough about me. Do you have any scars?"  
"Yeah, I have a bad one arcoss my abdomin. It wasn't from a battle though, I was dating a turian and he wanted to sleep with me. I know our species are very open with that but I didn't feel ready. He got angry and slashed me there, so deep that I thought it affected my fertility but the doctors assured that I got lucky. If he had gone more to the left if would have greatly decreased my chances."

"Is he still alive because I'll make sure that changes in no time," Caius growled and Lana chuckled and patted him on his right shoulder.

"He is but he's not worth the trouble, I appreciate the thought though." Caius huffed before he decided to change the topic.

"So how many children do you want if you were that concerned about the gash?"

"Hmm...I want to start out with two at least, if I want more than I'll have more as long as my future mate agrees but if not I'll still be happy. What about you? Ever thought of children?" Caius hummed in thought before answering.

"Yeah actually a few times. A few turians on my ship had children and a mate back at home. Everytime we docked I would see their families waiting for them and how excited they get with seeing their loved ones. Seeing the little turians dash at their father or mother...it makes me think how nice that would be to eventually settle down…" Caius shook his head and cleared his throat before standing up. "Anyway I never really did get a good look at the datapad so let me see what they were after." Caius picked it up from the floor where he dropped it and looked over it carefully. Lana limped over to him.

"Well?"

"It seems they're looking for an artifact call Nalinia, they don't mention what it does. Just the trouble with finding it." Caius heard static over his comm before it cleared up to reveal his mother's voice.

"Caius are you there?"

"Yeah we're here and we're fine. There are some ruins down here and it seems a group of humans are looking for an artifact called Nalinia."

"Nalinia? I'll have to do some research on that...you guys have been gone for a long time so I was worried."

"Really? Damn these ruins are huge. Look if we don't come back by nightfall then we'll have to sleep here and try to get out in the morning."

"Alright just becareful, I'll do some more research on the Nalinia and let you know tomorrow or later on if you return by then."

"Alright, be careful yourself.'' Caius shut off the comm and turned to see Lana inspecting the body of one of the humans.

"They have a symbol on their armor that I've never seen before." Caius frowned at that and walked over to her. He looked closely at the symbol on their armor. It was shaped like a turian's skull and it had a red solid line circle around it.

"Well, whoever they are a turian is definitely leading them" Caius then scooped her up again and she sighed.

"Well, the walking was fun while it lasted."

"You mean limping?"

"Shut up."

"Is that your new favorite word?"

"With you it is."

They continued their light banter and had other conversations for hours as they walked through the ruins. When it was nightfall Caius found a secure room for them to sleep in for the night and set her down gently. Caius secured the door and he heard her sigh.  
"I guess there are no blankets in here."

"I know, I tried to find the warmest room but I guess this will do" Caius commented apologetically and turned to see her getting comfortable on the floor, well at least tried to. Caius laid down near her but gave her enough space for her privacy.

"Night"

'Night" she hummed back before curling up. Caius didn't expect to get a good night rest so he mostly thought about what to do when he only got two hours until heard clicking noises. He turned his head and he could see her shivering.  
"What happened to the thermal heat in your suit?"

"I think it also got busted from the fall. D-doesn't help that I'm wearing light armor." Caius thought for a moment before finally making a decision and scooted over to her. As he wrapped his arms around her from behind she tensed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm keeping you warm so you don't freeze to death. I'm not hurting your leg am I?"

"No it's fine, um thank you."

"Mhmm" he hummed as he felt his eyelids grow heavy. Thankfully her shivering stopped and he could hear her deep even breaths before he soon fell asleep himself. For once there was no nightmares to disturb him and he would have the most restful sleep he's ever had in years.


	6. Nilia Part Two

Lana's biological clock woke her and she felt the sleepiness drain away when she saw how she somehow turned in her sleep so that she was facing Caius. Their faces were so close that their foreheads were almost touching and she felt embarrassed. His hold tightened on her when she tried to move away even though he was still fast asleep. Lana let out a soft sigh into his chest when he pulled her close and gently nudged Caius to wake him.

"Hmm?" He replied without opening his eyes and she held back her laughter.

"Caius it's time to get up, I would have let you sleep but you wouldn't let me go."

"Five more minutes."

"Caius…"

"Please Lana? I haven't slept this well in Spirits knows how long." Lana thought for a moment before she nodded.

"Okay…"

"Thank you. I promise just five more minutes." Caius purred softly before his breaths became even again. Lana stayed there longer than five minutes since she felt bad that he hasn't had a good nights rest since being on the ship. She noticed that his sub vocals were giving off a low purr that only a turian would be able to hear. She didn't know what it meant since she's never heard it before so she made a mental note to ask Garrus since he was older and would know what it meant from his own son. After ten minutes Lana woke him with a nudge and this time he opened his eyes. Realizing how close they were he pulled away and rubbed his eyes. To her disappointment, she missed the warmth and the purring that stopped which surprised Lana that she would even care about purring. He stretched and rubbed the back of his neck before looking at her leg.

"How does your leg feel?"  
"Sore but there's no throbbing pain I felt yesterday."

"Good, I guess you didn't fracture it then and could have just bruised it badly" he applied more medigel to the bruise before he stood up and held out his hand. She took it and was glad to see that she was able to walk without much strain and Caius nodded in approval.

"Nice, you can walk, let me know if it becomes too much to walk and I'll carry you." Lana nodded as Caius turned to unlock the door. She couldn't help but notice how well rested he looked, if you couldn't see it in his eyes then you could definitely see it in his strides. He tossed her a protein bar and she opened the wrapper gratefully.

"Thanks, I'm starving." She chirped and that cute little sound caused him to smile.

"Welcome, you never know what may happen so I always bring some along, and because I have a large appetite." Lana snickered.

"Is that your polite way of saying you're fat?" she teased and Caius gasped in mock outrage.

"No! I'm saying that I need protein for these muscles! You think they get like this overnight?!" Caius huffed but Lana could tell that he was holding in his laughter by the way his mandibles held tightly against his face.

"Sure you do."

"Oh? I guess you need another demonstration." Lana yelped when he scooped her up again and Caius began to hum as he carried a squirming Lana.

"Alright! you've made your point now put me down!" Caius snickered and let her down before they continued to walk through the ruins. After an hour they finally found a staircase which they both were happy to see as they went up the stairs. Caius heard movement down the hallway and they both took out their pistols. Aiming ahead at whatever the possible threat was, Caius turned the corner and came face to face with his parents who also had their weapons ready. All four let out relieved sighs and Jane hugged her son tightly.

"Thank god you guys are okay. I was so worried when you fell through the hole. We found the artifact with the councilor asari's help and brought it back on the Normandy. I give you more details about it later but we should head back now." Caius nodded and when he noticed that Lana was back to limping he scooped her up again. His parents looked on with raised eyebrows and Caius shrugged.

"She hurt her leg during the fall." He hummed as he walked on ahead.

Upon exiting the building his parents began to race towards the mako and Caius quickly put Lana down with an apology before chasing after his mother. When he was close enough he tackled his mother and she let out a string of curses as she tried to get out of his hold. Garrus turned to them and Caius yelled.

"Get to the mako! I can only hold her for so long!" Garrus gave him a quick nod before he turned to run to the mako.

"Damn it! Caius let me go!"

"I'm sorry mom but this is for your own good!" Jane headbutted him with the back of her head and he cursed, causing him to loosen his hold. Caius soon found himself being pinned down by his mother and getting his ass beat. He just took it since he could never hit his mother even if it was sparring so after several good hits she finally got up. Once she stomped off towards the mako Caius stood up, holding his bruised side as he made his way over to Lana. She had her mandibles held tightly against her face to hold back her laughter and Caius gave her a glare.

"Don't" He picked her up again and he rolled his eyes when her shoulders shook. "Fine, go ahead and laugh." Lana complied and burst out laughing, her laughter echoed all the way to the mako.

It was a smooth ride in the mako with Garrus driving and Jane was sulking in the passenger seat and every time Garrus tried to comfort her she would just sulk even more. Garrus heard a soft rumbling and he glanced back to see that it was coming from Caius's subvocals. Lana's legs were on his lap and he was gently putting on some more medigel on her bruise. Garrus knew that Caius wasn't softly purring on purpose, more like he didn't even know he was doing it. He never heard anything so soft come from his son, he almost missed it but focusing on it he could definitely hear it. Garrus smiled at that and Jane gave him a questioning look but he shook his head.

"I'll tell you later…"

Back on the Normandy, all four were in the war room after Lana visited the med bay. Luckily she had only bruised the bone so all she had to do was keep putting medi gel on it and it would be healed in a couple days. Caius had made her sit down in the war room as she pulled up the surveillance that she recovered from Nilia. With a slight glare in his direction she showed them the footage. They were able to see the large explosion before armored turians, humans, and salarians stormed in. Shooting the remaining asari before they went off in different directions. Caius sighed.

"Good thing you got the artifact. It must be really important if they went to such lengths." Garrus hummed in agreement.

"Luckily we were able to get the artifact in time which is just a white sphere. We encountered some salarians that had a weird symbol on their armor."

"Was it a turian skull in a red lined circle?" Lana asked and Jane nodded.

"Did you encounter some resistance too?"

"Yep, humans and they had the same symbol. They were actually arguing about the artifact." Lana finished before Caius asked.

"Do you know anything about it?"

"The asari councilor just told us it is very important to the asari, it's been around for thousand of years to the point most have forgotten it which is better that way. She wouldn't tell me anything else since I guess she feared that someone else would overhear. She told me to head to Thessia, a friend of hers would be able to tell us in detail without the risk of the wrong person overhearing and to keep it safe." Caius hummed.

"Guess we're heading to Thessia, it would be a nice change of scenery." Jane chuckled softly.

"I'll set a course then." Jane turned to leave and Lana stood.

"Time to help Joker with the Normandy."

"Alright, just be careful with your leg." Lana rolled her eyes in amusement as she turned to leave.  
"I will" Caius watched her go and he heard his father snicker, with a frown Caius looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing...just that I noticed that you guys have started getting along." Caius shrugged.

"Yeah she hurt her leg and I decided to apologize by carrying her."

"Uh huh."

"What are you getting at?"

"Caius. You were purring in the mako."

"No I wasn't."

"You were in your subvocals, of course, you didn't realize you were doing it but it was very soft. Never heard you do that before."

"Okay, maybe I purred. So what's your point?" Caius asked curiously and Garrus smiled.

"I have a question. Do you feel anything towards Lana?"

"No."

"Ah so you haven't fully accepted it yet" Caius frowned.  
"Accepted what?"

"Your body has accepted her as a mate but your mind is still holding you back." Caius scoffed.

"Yeah right, I'm not looking for one right now remember? That's years from now."

"The universe doesn't agree with you apparently." Caius shook his head and turned around.

"Uh huh, well I'm going to work on reports. Practice on the treadmill since I took a beating just for you to make it to the mako."

"I may be old but I can still kick your ass!" Caius chuckled as he walked out of the war room. Not looking forward to the long hours of writing reports.

"You have got to be kidding me…" Caius groaned in his bed as he lay awake. He had gone to bed two hours ago but for the life of him could not fall asleep. He was exhausted but he just couldn't will his eyes to close. Caius went as far as taking sleeping pills but they didn't work either since he was still wide awake. With a growl he got out of bed in only his pajama pants and headed down to the crew's quarters. Upon entering he saw Lana in her cot in the far corner, wide awake. She looked at him when he came in and he could see how tired she was by the look in her eyes.

"What are you doing here Caius?"

"I can't sleep so I want to try an experiment."

"Ah you can't either" she yawned "What do you have in mind?"

"That you sleep with me in my room." Lana glared at him and he rolled his eyes.

"Not like that, I meant just for you to sleep next to me." Lana thought it over for a few moments before she swung her legs over the side of the cot, exhaustion getting the better of her.

"Fine but you better not try anything."

"I'm not some horny varren Lana" Caius sighed and scooped her up despite her protest. He brought her to his quarters and set her down.

"Which side do you want?"Lana rubbed her eyes as she went to the right side of the bed.  
"I'll have this side." Caius nodded and yawned as he climbed into the left side. They turned their backs towards each other but it was enough for them to both fall into a deep sleep. Their first night as roomates.


	7. Long Morning

It would take a week to get to Thessia so for a few nights Caius and Lana had been sleeping in his quarters since it was the only way for them to have a good night's rest. After a few days, Lana decided to fully move into his quarters by putting her things away in his room so she didn't have to go back and forth every time she took a shower. Caius gave her a few drawers for her stuff which was more than enough, after all, they were in the military which was normal not to have too many things. Everyone in the ship thought this whole ordeal was hilarious and would often tease them about it. Caius usually shrugged it off and came back with quips of his own but Lana would always get embarrassed. Caius would always tease her how cute her reaction was which usually earned him a smack upside the head. On the fourth night, Lana's alarm went off for her early morning shower and wasn't surprised to see Caius hugging her close. Didn't matter what positions they tried since she would always end up in this predicament so Lana just stopped fighting it and embraced the warmth. She patted his hand for him to let go and she heard him click in annoyance before releasing his hold.

"I won't be long" Lana yawned as she stood up and Caius huffed.

"Promise? Yesterday you were in there for over an hour."

"That's because I was putting on some lotion and doing other girly things that guys don't understand. I may be on a ship but it doesn't mean I want to go around here smelling like metal and gun oil."

"Ah, so that's why your plates were soft and smooth last night." Lana raised her brow plates as she gathered her soap.

"You noticed?" Caius rubbed his eyes and nodded.

"Mhmm, I grope you unintentionally at night so it was hard not to. You also smelled like junifberries yesterday, suits you actually and it's not strong that I feel like I'm going to choke. I like it, sweet and subtle." Lana felt embarrassed by the compliment and hugged her towel tight.

"T-thank you, I'll try not to be too long." Caius hummed as he stretched out in bed and Lana quickly made her way to the showers. He sat up on the bed and took out a datapad from his nightstand drawer to make some notes of things they needed to stock up on when they arrived on Thessia. Half and hour went by and Caius was still typing on the datapad when he heard a screech from the showers. His heart jumped as he immediately dropped the device and grabbed his pistol from the nightstand before rushing to the showers. Gun drawn he entered the room with a growl and quickly scanned the area for any possible threats. Seeing none he looked at Lana who was on top of a toilet with a towel wrapped around her, trembling.

"Lana what happened? Are you okay?" Caius asked worriedly as his heart beated wildly in his chest for fear of her safety.  
"I'm fine but a huge eight-legged bug scurried across the floor when I got out." Lana whimpered and Caius sighed in relief, glad it wasn't anything serious before he glared at her.

"So you nearly gave me a heart attack over a bug?!"

"It was really big! As big as a plate!"

"Do you hear how fast my heart is beating right now?!" Lana stayed quiet to listen before she responded.

"I'm sorry...I didn't realize that you would be so worried. Thank you, though." Caius rubbed his face and sighed.

"It's fine, let's just head back to bed after you've put on your pj's."

"Wait. Aren't you going to do something about the bug?" Caius rubbed his neck.

"Where did it go?" Lana pointed to the left and he sighed before going to investigate. He saw something black stick out under the shower curtain and he chuckled.

"This little thing? I swear you-What the hell?!" Caius yelped when he saw the biggest spider he had ever seen hiss and jump onto his face. He screeched as he tried to claw it off but the damn thing scrambled over his fringe and down his back.

"Get it off!" He trilled as he rolled on the ground to try to squish it. When it went down his pants he jumped up in a trill.

"It's in the danger zone! It's trying to prevent me from having babies!" He tore off his pants and managed to kick off the spider before he started to hit it with his pistol. Not stopping even when it was a gooey mess. When he was sure it was dead he panted and glared at a cowering Lana.

"Thanks for the help! I could have been prevented of little turians!"  
"You have groin plates to protect you so I wasn't worried." Caius huffed.

"Just go get dressed while I clean this up. I should smear this on you as payback."

"Don't! I don't want to smell like that bug when I just put on my lotion!"

"The junifberries?"

"Mhmm;" Caius thought it over for a moment before standing up.

"Fine, I let it slide. Just this once." Lana chuckled and made sure he was out of her sight before getting dressed. Caius cleaned up the mess using the shower head to wash it away. Satisfied once it was all washed away he didn't turn around just yet in case Lana was still naked.

"All set?"

"Just a moment." After a few more rustling of clothes she hummed.

"Done." Caius turned around with a yawn and headed back to his quarters with Lana. Entering the room Lana frowned at the datapad on the bed.

"Caius you were working weren't you?" Caius shrugged as he slipped into bed.

"Yeah, I had to do something while you were away so I thought I should be productive." When he reached for the datapad Lana swooped in to grab it and he frowned.

"I need to finish up there Lana."

"No, you don't. The last couple times you did this while waiting for me you continued to work until your shift started. This can wait until you actually have to work, you need to sleep."

"But It won't-"

"No"

"But I need-"

"No!" To empathize her point she put the datapad in her nightstand drawer with a huff and turned to look at him. Caius crossed his arms.

"Fine, I guess this is the perfect opportunity to ask you why you need to take a shower this early before everyone else?"  
"Well it's so I can have a nice peaceful shower, second…" She shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

"I'm just insecure okay? I have a bad memory of boot camp so can we leave it at that?"

"You sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Not unless you tell me about your nightmares" Caius tapped his chin in thought before patted the spot next to him.

"Fine, come it's story time." Lana's eyes widened.

"Wait you're serious?"  
"Do you want to know or not?" Lana nodded and eagerly sat on the bed next to him. Caius sighed softly.

"Before I tell you about my nightmares I have to tell you the backstory of where they stem from."

"Okay;" Lana said in a soft tone and Caius cleared his throat before he started.

"I had a very close friend, well he was more like a brother to me. We met when we were five years old at the academy I attended and his name was Kanus…"

Caius told Lana everything about his best friend and about his death along with little details from their childhood. Lana listened intently and she could tell that even after all these years his death still affected him by the distress in his sub vocals. He then told her about his nightmares and how they've gotten worse since he was on the ship. When he finished with the story he looked down at his necklace and Lana sighed.

"You blame yourself don't you?" Caius played with the orange gem before replying.

"How could I not? If I hadn't gone ahead or maybe have been able to dodge the grenade better he would still be here. Or better yet gone with him in the shuttle!"

"Caius there was no way you could've known that would happen. It's very uncommon for a turian to betray their crew. You can't blame yourself for something that was out of your control. You're taking care of his family so his death was not in vain. You made the right decision with saving the colonists, they needed you." Caius felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest with telling her his nightmare and her reassurance. He sighed

"I guess you're right, it's just...hard." Lana put a reassuring hand on his arm.

"I can't say I understand because I've never been through what you have but in time it will get better." Caius looked at her and sighed.

"I hope you're right" he shook his head before laying his head on her lap and hummed.

"Your turn." Lana sighed and leaned back against the headboard.

"Well as you know we share the showers in boot camp, I was the shortest female there so they would always do petty things. Bump into me and due to my size I would fall down fairly easily. They would put soap in front of my shower so I would slip on it when I walked out. I usually threw myself into learning tech and engineering so I wouldn't brood on their bullying which helped. When we went to the tournament all the damn girls had a crush on you because they saw you in the tournament. At one point you bumped into me and helped me up."

"I did? Wait...that small female was you?" Lana glared at him and nodded.

"Yes it was me, I would remember that orange fringe anywhere." Caius rolled his eyes and nudged Lana for her to continue. "Anyway the girls were jealous and when we went back to boot camp they confronted me with. 'You really think you have a chance with him?! Or you're too ugly, he needs someone that he would be proud to have on his arm."

"Wow, all that because I was being nice and helped you up?" Lana sighed.

"Yeah, I tried to convince them otherwise but they wouldn't hear of it. So that night when I went to shower all the girls left and took my clothes before locking me in there. I screamed and pounded the door for hours but no one would come. Then when everyone went to shower in the morning they all laughed at me and pointed out anything ugly about me. So that's why I make sure I shower by myself or else I get paranoid that I'll get locked in again." Caius stayed quiet for a moment before speaking.

"Do you still think of yourself as ugly?"

"Yes;" Lana said without hesitation and Caius shook his head.

"You're not ugly Lana."

"I understand that you're trying to make me feel better but-"

"I'm not saying it to make you feel better that's my honest opinion."

"Caius if no guys have gone to me for 'blowing off steam' and is the reason I'm still...inexperienced then I think that's a sign. So I know you're just saying that just to be nice." Caius glared up at her with a low growl.

"Are you calling me a liar?" Lana shrugged.

"Well-" Caius huffed and got up from the bed before grabbing her hand to drag her off as well. "Caius what are you doing?!"

"You brought this on yourself." He brought her to the mirror in his room and stood her in front of it. When she tried to look away he grabbed her chin gently and forced her to look at herself in the mirror.

"Lana I've seen a lot of female turians but none of them have eyes as bright as yours. So bright that my eyes are competing with yours and losing drastically." She shuffled her feet in embarrassment and he continued by touching her nose with a single talon. "Then you have this cute nose that always wiggles every time you snore. Your plates are a beautiful beige color that complements your eyes perfectly and your markings, and…" he trailed a talon down her waist and it made her shiver. "I've never seen a waist as perfect as yours."

"Caius don't tease me like that" Caius smiled and made his way over to the couch. Sitting down to put his arms over the couch with a smirk.

"Who said I was just teasing?" Lana's eyes widened.

"Are you really serious? If you're playing a joke on me right now I will break off your fringe." He chuckled and shook his head.

"No joke" His subvocals hummed with honesty and Lana wrapped her arms around herself.

"Why would you want me?"

"Well, I get along with you very well now which is a first for me since all the female turians I've been with were always snobby. Granted they were always a one night stand…" He muttered the last part and cleared his throat. "Plus we live in the same room now and you're beautiful as I pointed out very clearly. If you don't want to do it that's fine with me we can resume to being roommates. If you want to do it but take it slow I will gladly go at your pace since I want you to be comfortable. Now if you want to do it now, of course, I would be more than okay with that but you have the power here, I want to make that clear." He hummed and Lana shuffled her feet in thought. Caius waited patiently as she thought it over for a few minutes before looking at him.

"I want to do it, now." Caius stood up before responding.

"Are you sure? We can stop at any time." Lana nodded.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Do you have the implant?"

"Implant?"

"The one that prevents pregnancy, I don't think it's a good time to have orange fringed little turians running around."

"Oh! Yes, I got that the day before I came on this ship." Caius nodded in approval before going over to her.

"Good, we'll take it slow so you have the opportunity to stop at any time, as much as it will kill, me" Caius said as he held his hand out to her. Lana chuckled softly and nodded before she put her hand in his, she was in for a very long morning.


	8. Girlfriend

Morning Joker!" Lana said with a warm smile before sitting next to him in the cockpit. Joker gave her a weird look.

"Okay now I have to ask, have you been getting laid the past few days?" Lana raised her browplates, trying to keep her composure despite feeling embarrassed at the truth of that statement.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well you've been in a really good mood and you look different, more of a glow to you. Plus Caius looks more relaxed so those are signs that a couple of turians have been getting along in the bedroom." Lana groaned and rubbed her face.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Giving each other looks when you think no one is looking. Caius dragging you off to his room at some point during the day. Staring at your ass every time you walk by. Yeah totally not obvious at all."

"I'm surprised you got all of that from being glued to that chair, and to clarify I stare at her hips and waist, not her ass," Caius commented in the cockpit before taking a sip of his coffee.

"So you're openly admitting that you guys are sleeping together?" Joker asked and Caius nodded.

"Yep"

"Caius!"

"What? If he was able to figure it out then everyone else surely has." Lana thought it over for a moment.

"True" Joker frowned.

"Whats that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if someone like you that spends twenty-four seven here was able to figure it out then the whole crew definitely knows." Caius finished as Joker grumbled. "So how long will it be before we arrive on Thessia?"

"Two hours" Lana replied as she looked at the screens.

"Thank you, dear" Caius purred in her ear and it made her shiver.

"Save it for the bedroom" Joker commented and Caius chuckled at Lana's embarrassment before exiting the cockpit. He took the elevator down to the crew deck to place his mug in the empty sink and maybe grab a snack. Until he heard muttering from the main battery. Upon stepping closer to the doors he could hear the voices clearly.

"What if we skipped right to the tiebreaker? We can test your reach...and my flexibility…" He heard his mother before his father responded.

"Oh, I would love to test that out now…"

"Garrus!"

"Uh sorry" Garrus cleared his throat before continuing.

"Oh! I didn't...hm...never knew you had a weakness for men with scars...well why the hell not. There's nobody in this galaxy I respect more than you, and if we can find a way to make it work then...yeah. Definitely." Caius smirked when the door opened and his mother walked right into him. She blinked and glanced back at Garrus before looking at her son. Her cheeks slightly pink.

"How much of that did you hear?" Caius hummed.

"Only the part from 'testing out reach and flexibility'" Caius said in a high pitched voice to imitate his mother. Jane smacked his arm and Caius chuckled before he continued. "What were you guys doing there?"

"We were roleplaying the time your mother proposed blowing off steam." Garrus hummed and Jane nodded.

"Yep, I thought it would be fun to roleplay our pre-relationship since we're both on the Normandy again." Caius raised his brow plates in surprise before speaking.

"Well, hopefully, I won't catch you guys having sex. Anyway, good thing I caught you now. I wanted to know who we're going bring with us for this artifact presentation?" Jane rolled her eyes at his first comment before replying.

"All three of us are going including Wrex. No one else just to be safe."

"Hopefully your girlfriend will understand" Garrus hummed and Caius chuckled.

"I'm sure she will, she is pretty smart after all."

"Oh? You're not denying it?" Jane smirked and Caius rolled his eyes in amusement.

"Why would I deny something that's true." His parents smiled and he glanced at the time on his omni tool. "I should take into account what resources we'll need. I'll leave you to your roleplaying and be in the shuttle bay if anyone needs me." He smirked before heading to the elevator.

Lana came down to the shuttle bay an hour later, planning to ask Caius to shop for some decorations for their little room. Seeing him tapping on the datapad next to the mako she was about to head over to him until she heard someone loudly clear their throat. She turned to see Wrex looking at her, beckoning for her to come. Lana felt a bit nervous since the krogan was intimidating at a glance but Caius reassured her that once you get past the ugliness and the harsh eyes there's a much more pleasant and friendly krogan underneath. She still hasn't seen that part yet.

"So, female. I see my little pyjak has taken a liking towards you."

"I guess we didn't do a good job hiding that we're sleeping together." Lana sighed and Wrex shook his head.

"Not what I was talking about, although that part is true too." She frowned.

"What do you mean then?"

"I heard him call you his girlfriend when I was in the mess hall." Lana blinked, stunned in silence for a few moments before she finally uttered.

"What…"

"Is that not true?"

"Uh we never talked about it, I'm not saying that I don't like the title. I very much like it, I'm just...shocked. Unless he throws it around casually." Wrex hummed.

"Nope, in all the twenty-three years I've known him he's never stated a female as a girlfriend. Granted the longest he's been with a female was a one-night stand." Lana felt giddy at the statement but she only allowed a smile to come through. Wrex chuckled softly before he grew serious.

"All I ask is not to hurt him. He went through a rough time a few years back." Lana sighed softly.

"Yeah, he told me about Kanus." Wrex smiled.

"Good, he's developing a trust. Don't stop whatever you're doing. My little pyjak looks a lot happier now. I haven't seen him like this since he was a teenager" Lana smiled.

"Thanks Wrex." She then turned and headed over to Caius who was now leaning against a crate, still looking at the datapad.

"So what was Uncle Wrex talking to you about?" Caius hummed as he put down the pad to give her his full attention.

"Oh, nothing, just a bit of a chat." She cleared her throat, wanting to change the subject and not tell him about the 'talk'. "Anyway, I came to ask if you wanted to buy some little decorations for our room since we'll be staying on Thessia for a few days." Caius raised his browplates in surprise.

"Well, we are on a ship Lana…"

"I know but as you know in the military we move a lot and this is the first time I've had an actual room on a ship since I was fifteen. Please, this would really mean a lot to me." She gave him a hopeful look and Caius thought it over for a moment before giving in.

"All right, we can go today since I have the meeting with the asari tomorrow." Lana trilled in excitement.  
"Thank you! I want to look at the room to see what it needs! Oh! And I have to help Joker with docking the ship!" She exclaimed before scurrying out of the shuttle bay. Caius smiled at her excitement and shook his head before Wrex called out.

"You're so whipped!"

"Shut up!"

* * *

Caius looked around the store, the last time he had been in a store like this was when he first got his apartment on the Citadel. Only he just got dishware and some plants so the apartment didn't look so bland, fake ones of course.

"Ooh! Look at this!" She held up a blue rug that matched the color of his markings. Caius shook his head.

"Thanks for the thought on the color but we're not getting a rug." Lana arched a brow plate.

"Why not?"

"Because my talons on my feet will get caught in it."

"So? Just file them. Don't you do that regularly?" Caius scoffed.

"No. Why would I do that in the first place?" Lana frowned.

"Because it looks more sophisticated. Can we at least try with the rug?"

"Lana I don't think-"

"Blue pudding" Caius paused and gulped.

"I thought we ran out…" Lana smirked, her sub vocals giving out a flirty purr.

"Well I found another little package, I was planning to eat it for dessert after dinner but if we get the rug it would prompt me to use for...us." Caius's eyes trailed down her body and suddenly the lower part of his armor felt too tight.

"I think we got everything and dinner is soon so-"

"Caius we just entered the store," Lana said with a barely contained laugh when his shoulders sagged in defeat.

"Fine" he took the rug from her and placed it in the cart with a turian pout. Trying to take his mind off the ache in his groin. Lana hummed as she walked through the aisles. It felt good that she was able to bait him into a night filled with blue pudding getting on the sheets again. It didn't hurt that it was also a confidence booster. Something she's been having the past few days with Caius when he dropped little subtle compliments like 'Did you use a new cream because your plates are smoother than usual' or 'You should wear that more often because it brings out your exceptional waist.' Always made her feel warm inside when he noticed the little things.

"This lamp would go with the desk better than the old one, what do you think?" He hummed as he held a white more sophisticated looking lamp. Lana looked at it with a smile "Perfect, would go great with a plant too."

"Just make sure it's a fake one, I've already killed too many plants." He mumbled as he placed the desk lamp in the cart and she snickered.

"The great Caius Vakarian can't take care of a plant?" She mocked and he sighed dramatically.

"I know it's hard to believe I'm not good at everything but ironically I can take care of a toddler better than a plant."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I've babysat Kania for a whole day and had her stay the night once so I would say I did a pretty good job." Caius hummed and Lana chuckled.

"I think I need a little more convincing before I leave you with junior."

"Well, why don't you take out your implant and find out?" He snickered when Lana smacked his arm. Caius watched as she looked at some bed sheets, feeling warmth enter his chest and a sense of content. There was something else there too that he couldn't pinpoint, peace maybe? Yes, that's what it was...or was it? He did feel the peacefulness, a forgotten feeling in the past few years. It bothered him that he couldn't pinpoint the other faint feeling that was beginning to bloom, maybe he could ask his mother or his father on what it was.

"So which one do you think is best?" Caius blinked, realizing that Lana had been talking to him the whole time.

"I'm sorry I was lost in thought. What did you say?" Lana gave him a worried look.

"Is everything all right? If you have a lot to do we can go back and do this another day." Caius shook his head.

"No, I wasn't thinking about work, for once. I was thinking about this…"

"Are you not enjoying yourself?" Caius hastily grabbed her hand at the slight look of disappointment in her eyes.

"No! It's not that, I'm really enjoying myself. I was thinking about how...peaceful and domestic it is. I haven't had this sense of peace in a long time." He cleared his throat and shifted his feet. "Look, Lana, I wanted to ask you something….um…" He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

"Yes?" Lana said softly with a turian smile. It was cute that the usual confident turian she's come to know was getting flustered around _her._

"I-I was wondering if you wanted to be my girlfriend…"

"What?"

"Girlfriend. Please be my girlfriend before I die of embarrassment" He sighed as he looked at everything but her. Lana mandibles were held tightly against her face to hold in the laughter.

"I thought I already was?"

"What?" Lana shrugged.

"Well, Wrex told me he overheard you saying that…" Caius growled.

"I'm going to kill him" Lana chuckled.

"That would be a bit difficult don't you think?"

"I have my ways." Lana shook her head and put a hand on his arm.

"Let's not go into a blood rage here. I accept and appreciate that you're officially asking me." Caius mandibles flared into a broad smile as he looked at her, a purr in his sub-vocals.

"Really?" Lana returned the smile and nodded.

"Yes really." Caius let out a relieved sigh.

"Good. I'm new at this so bare with me if I make a mistake. That being said, you have permission to smack me upside the head If I do something stupid." Lana laughed

"I haven't had a real relationship either so we'll manage together. Now. Which sheet is better?"

"They're both terrible." Lana smacked his head and he glared at her as he rubbed the sore spot.

"I meant for that rule to apply to boyfriend things."

"Oops."

* * *

"I swear if my toe claws get stuck on here…"

"They won't if you keep them trimmed" Lana hummed as she placed a small plant that was in a little white vase on the desk.

"It's already a chore as it is to keep my six claws trimmed, now I have to add in four more." He sighed in exasperation as he filed his toe claws on the bed.

"Stop whining, we had an agreement."

"We did, and I'm still waiting for the blue pudding!" He grumbled and Lana rolled her eyes.

"Fine let me go get it" she walked out of the room and to the kitchen. Lana looked into the fridge and opened the drawer that should have the pudding...but it was empty. Her eyes widened as she looked through the whole fridge frantically. Moving a carton of juice to the side until she heard Garrus ask.

"What are you looking for?"

"The blue pudding I had in this drawer." Garrus winced.

"Oh uh...I ate that."

"What?!" Garrus shrugged.

"Should've put your name on it. It was pretty good too." Lana was about to respond until she heard the door to her room hiss.  
"Lana, what's taking so long?" Caius huffed as he stepped out. Lana shifted her feet.

"Uh well...Garrus ate it. Right, Garrus? G-Garrus!" Lana looked around and didn't see the ex-vigilante anywhere. The only evidence of his presence was the closing hiss of the main battery door

"So you lied to me?" Caius said evenly and Lana shook her head frantically.

"N-no I'm telling the truth!"

"Huh" Caius hummed as he reached behind him to pull out a pair of handcuffs. Lana looked at the cuffs with wide eyes.

"What are those for?" Caius spun them around his finger before replying.

"I was going to use them in addition to the pudding but since there is none...I'm going to have to punish you for a breach in our deal."

"T-there's really no need for any punishment." Caius tsked.

"Lana be a good girl and come here." Lana took a step back before she made a beeline to the main battery, hoping Garrus would protect her. She hadn't taken three steps before she felt a pair of arms wrap around her.  
"Caius I was telling the truth I swear!" She trilled as he put her over his shoulder, humming as he made his way back to the room.

"Well there's no evidence to support that is there?" Lana heard Wrex bellow in laughter from the elevator and she sighed before giving him a wave as the door closed.

* * *

So sorry that I haven't posted a new chapter in so long! I've been busy with other things but I will try to post more often. Things will get more interesting the next chapter :)


	9. The Nilien

Caius holstered his pistol to his side and turned to see his parents and Wrex get into the airlock.

"This better not be a waste of time" Wrex grumbled and Caius hummed in agreement.

"It won't since this new organization nearly blew a colony up over it." Jane snorted as they exited out of the airlock and into the asari homeworld Thessia. They followed the directions that were forwarded to them on their omni tools and it wasn't long before they arrived at a secluded building.

"Um is there a secret code or something for them to open the door?" Garrus commented.

"Or we could kick the door open" Wrex suggested and Caius snickered.

"I wonder how the asari commando will respond to that" Caius walked up to the door and gave it a knock, stepping back when an AI appeared.

"Speak your name" Caius frowned slightly before responding.

"Caius Vakarian "

"Access granted" the doors opened and he glanced at Wrex and his parents who shrugged before entering the building. They were greeted by the sight of a familiar asari.

"Liara!" Jane exclaimed as she hugged her longtime friend.

"Shepard it's so good to see you, and Caius look how tall you've gotten!" Liara gasped as she gave him a tight hug. Caius smiled as he hugged her back.

"Hey auntie Liara" Liara smiled at the name before she moved to hug Garrus and give a nod to Wrex, knowing he wasn't the hugger type.

"Did you bring it?" Liara asked eagerly and Jane nodded before holding out the plain white sphere. Liara took it delicately, staring at it in awe.

"Never did I think this early in my life would I be able to hold something so precious to my species. Come. We can't talk here." Liara turned and hurriedly went into a room that was shaped like a circle. It had no windows, just a sophisticated table in the center with some chairs. After they filed in Liara locked the doors before turning to them.

"It's safe now, we will be the only ones to listening to this conversation."  
"Good, now can you tell us why this stupid ball is so important?" Wrex grumbled and Liara gave him a glare.

"It's not stupid, this is the reason why the asari were the first on the Citadel." Liara then sighed "But...it can also be our destruction, there must be a balance after all."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked curiously as she took a seat and Liara looked up at her.

"In order to understand, I must start from the beginning." Liara took a deep breath before she continued.

"There was a time when we had males in our species. It was back when my ancestors were around campfires. The males were actually similar to the krogan in terms of violence and brashness. No offense Wrex."

"None taken" Wrex muttered as he sat down along with Garrus and Caius before he gestured for her to continue.

"Anyway, evolution made our females to be sophisticated and patient. To balance our males, females during that time were often annoyed with the males and they often excluded them from hunting or building to give them less power. From my research, it seemed that one day a female stumbled upon a cave and found a life form similar to the Thorian we found on Feros only much friendlier it seems. The Nilien, is what we call it. Offered a deal to the female, that if we sacrificed all our males, our species would advance like never before, we would be unmatched. This female brought all the other women from her tribe since this, of course, was a deal not taken lightly. They asked all types of questions, in terms of reproduction, what kind of advancements they would have. The Nilien seem to satisfy them with its answers, fed up with the males the females agreed. The next day all the males were gone, left without any traces. No one knew what had happened to them, all they knew was that they were gone for good. When they returned to the cave all that was left was this ball. However, the Nilien kept its word with our advancement, it gave us longer lives, the mind melding to ensure procreation, and enhancement of our biotic abilities. The Nilien kept quiet and we guarded it until we reached the Citadel. It made itself known then once it was safe and warned us that since we reached our prime moment it would no longer look after us. We would be on our own, also that if this went into the wrong hands and was used properly it would destroy my entire species including our technology. The advancement would go to the species who wields this properly. That's why we sent it to Nilia, so that its location wouldn't be obvious."

"So what do you mean if it's used properly?" Caius asked.

"According to my research, it has to be used with the species most important artifact in order to inherit the advancement."

"No wonder it's been kept a secret, if every species in the galaxy found out about this…" Jane trailed off and Garrus finished.

"It would basically turn into a galactic war over who gets it first."

"The crap you drag me into Shepard never ceases to amaze me" Wrex commented with a shake of his head. Caius rubbed his face with a sigh.

"Well, the species who want this is obviously turian, of course, the humans and the salarians who joined up with them don't realize that it only works for one species at a time, or that it even does that in the first place."

"The less they know the more time it gives us to find their base and the pattern with the asari assassinations." Garrus hummed and Wrex grunted in agreement.

"We still need to hurry, we don't know their movements exactly. Liara, I'm assuming that it's going to stay here?"

"Yes, I'll make sure it's well protected, of course not so obvious but I thank you for returning it safely." Jane nodded.

"Good, come on boys. We have a lot of work to do. Especially me since I need to plan my retirement after yet again resolving another galactic concern. I guess Sovereign, the Collectors, and the Reapers weren't enough." Everyone snickered while exiting the building and Caius saw a tech shop across from them.

"I need to make a little detour, I'll catch up with you guys later."

Lana cursed again as she typed away furiously on the console in the main battery. Since Garrus was too busy with investigating the asari assassinations he didn't have the time to calibrate this area of the ship. So he entrusted her with it which is a great honor apparently since he never allowed anyone to touch it. She had no problem calibrating but when she had to do it his way it became quite frustrating.

"Lana there's a package for you in the shuttle bay," Joker said over the comm.

"Who's it from?"

"It's anonymous, I guess you have a secret admirer." Lana rolled her eyes.

"Very funny Joker." She turned away from the console and went down to the shuttle bay. Lana easily found the box since it was white and rather large unlike the huge dull crates that surrounded her. She carefully opened up the box and gasped at the contents. It was all the tech equipment she had ordered before she came onto the ship. Only better and more expensive if their design was any indication.

"Ah, so that's what the little pyjak bought," Wrex commented as he walked up to the box. Lana raised her brow plates in surprise.

"What?"

"Yeah, when we were coming back to the ship he said he had to make a little detour. He went into a tech shop which I thought was weird since he was never interested in tech but now it makes sense." Lana looked back at the box and closed it before hugging it to her chest.

"Do you know where he is?" Wrex grinned.

"In his room." Lana thanked Wrex with a smile before she got up to head to the elevator with the box.

When she entered his room he was at his terminal in a video chat. Not wanting to interrupt Lana carefully placed the box down near the door, prompting Caius to look at her before beckoning her over.

"I want you to meet someone" he hummed as Lana walked over to him. Peering at the screen she saw a young asari staring back at her.

"Kania this Lana my girlfriend, Lana this is Kania my niece." Lana smiled as she waved at the asari who eagerly waved back.

"Hi! Wait what's a girlfriend?" Kania quipped and Caius rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's um...a female partner that you're...in a romantic relationship with."

"Like a wife?" Caius cleared his throat nervously and Lana knew that was a human term for a female bondmate so she shuffled her feet uncomfortably. Lana heard another asasri chuckle.

"No sweetheart that's a more serious stage. With turians, they call it bondmates, by the way, I'm Rila. It's nice to finally meet the mysterious Lana that Caius has talked so much about." Rila greeted with a smile and Lana smirked at Caius when she heard his subvocals give away his embarrassment.

"Oh, so when are you going to be bondmates?' Kania asked eagerly and Caius coughed nervously.

"Kania you don't ask those kinds of questions. It's their decision, not ours and you shouldn't pressure them." Rila scolded and Kania looked down.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Caius purred.

"It's alright Kania, and I found a ship model that looks quite complicated to put together. Think you can do it?" Kania instantly perked up at that.  
"Yeah!" Caius chuckled.

"Alright, I'll send it over to you sweetpea, don't know how long it's going to be from here but hopefully soon. Judging from the time on the omni tool it's almost your bedtime."  
"Yes it is her bedtime now" Rila chuckled and Kania shook her head furiously.  
"No! Five more minutes, please! I want to talk to Uncle Caius more!"

"Kania, a young mind like yours needs to rest" Caius purred and Kania pouted.

"When are you coming back?" Lana's heart broke at the sadness in the young girl's voice and she could imagine it was the same for Caius judging by the low rumble of sadness in his subvocals.

"I don't know little engineer, this is a very important mission so I can't say. I promise I'll call you more frequently when I can okay?" Kania didn't seem too convinced so Lana added.

"I'll take over some of his work so he has time to chat with okay Kania?" The young asari looked up at her with hope.

"Really?" Lana mandibles flared into a warm smile.

"Yes I will, so he can chat with you all he'd like." Kania finally smiled.

"Thank you! You're really nice!" Lana purred

"Why thank you miss." Kania giggled and Rila stroke her head with a smile.

"Ready for bed now?" Kania nodded and waved at them through the screen. Caius and Lana waved back before the screen blackened. Caius leaned back in his chair and let out a relieved sigh.

"Thank you for that, my heart can't take her being so upset."

"I could imagine, she's too cute" Lana hummed as she picked up the box and went over to the bed with it to go through its contents more thoroughly.

"Oh, you got a package?" Caius hummed and Lana smirked at how he was trying to play it off.

"Oh yes, all of my tech equipment that you threw out only it's a lot better. Also more expensive, the only way someone could afford this is if they had a Spectre salary."

"I'm guessing my mom bought you those then."

"Really? Then what were you doing in the tech shop" Lana asked with a raised brow plate and Caius shrugged.

"Why would I be in the tech shop? I hate tech in general, boring as hell."  
"Give it up Caius Wrex sold you out," Caius growled.

"That ugly ass can't keep his mouth shut can he?!" Lana snickered as she placed the lid back on the box. She would have more time to look through it later but first.

"Well, you shouldn't get too mad at him. Since I know that you bought me the best tech equipment ever I would like to thank you." She purred as she placed the box carefully in her drawer.

"Oh?" Caius perked up at that and Lana smirked as grabbed a small bowl from another drawer. Caius watched as she opened the lid and swirled her talon in the white fluff and licked it off.

"This is not as good as the blue pudding but it's quite good. I made it by buying some dextro ingrediants here." Lana hummed and nearly burst out in laughter when he was rushing to take off his armor pieces. She could already see herself yawning in the morning from the long night ahead.


	10. Hello Again

"That rug is going Lana!" Caius growled as he stomped out of his room and into the mess hall. Lana took a sip of her dextro coffee before looking up from the datapad in her hand towards him.

"No it's not" Lana answered cooly and Caius's mandibles flared out in anger.

"Yes it is! I tripped over the damn thing just now and that's the fifth time since we got it!"

"Did you trim your talons?"

"Yes I did! Twice!"

"You probably didn't do it properly."  
"What?" Lana shrugged.

"You can't trim them the same way that you do with your fingers. You have to sand them down and everything." Caius stared at her for what seemed like an eternity before he turned to go back to his room.

"What are you doing?" Lana asked as she stood and Caius answered back.

"Getting rid of the stupid rug."

"Don't you dare touch my rug Caius!" Lana growled as she stomped off to the room.

* * *

"Sir this is for you, from a female turian" An asari waitress said as she placed a drink in front of him. Caius rolled his eyes and didn't even look at who the asari was gesturing at while the guys snickered around him. After having an argument that started with the rug with Lana and the stresses of the mission he wanted to go out and clear his head so Wrex, Joker, Barbar, Trey, and his father joined him for a guys night out.

"It's your lucky day Trey here's another one for you" Caius hummed as he slid the drink over to him. Trey shook his head.

"No I'm alright, I've already had three of them so Garrus you could have this one."

"Thanks" Garrus smiled before happily sipping the bright blue drink. Joker then coughed.

"She's coming" Caius groaned and took a large sip of his beer when he felt the presence of the female turian.

"It was hard to miss that fringe so I was wondering-"

"Not interested" Caius cut her off immediately so she got the message. He glanced at her, sure she was pretty but he didn't feel the need to chase after her like he usually would before he met Lana. The female frowned.

"But-"

"I have a girlfriend"

"I'm sure-"

"It's not going to happen so move on" Caius sighed and the female growled before walking away. Turning to look back at the guys he saw their shoulders shake with contained laughter.

"Why did I even agree to bring you guys?" Caius grumbled and Garrus hummed.

"Because we're the best company ever."

"If you're the best company then I'm obviously lacking the social part of my life" Caius drawled before he chugged the rest of his beer. His mind had begun to feel fuzzy then and the last thing he wanted was to be fully drunk. Especially since he had to stock up the ship and more reports so he decided it would be best to get some fresh air to sober up a bit.

"I'll be back in a few so try not to get kicked out. By that I mean you Wrex" Caius hummed and Wrex snorted.

"Smartass" Caius stuck his tongue out at him and dodged the lazy swipe of Wrex's fist before making his way out the door. His mind went to the mission and the immense pressure that went with it. Knowing that if they didn't catch this organization soon it become another galactic war. However, instead of fighting together against a single threat it would be with each other. The galaxy was not ready for it, even after twenty years since the Reapers the galaxy was still recovering. Billions of lives were lost in that war and to be in another galactic war would bring every species to its knees. Caius shook his head with a sigh and leaned against a wall. Right now it was quite deserted but Caius didn't think much of it. He just closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. The cool air helped clear his head so he turned to walk back to the bar. Only to get the air knocked out of him with a hard punch to the chest from an armored turian. Caius collapsed onto his knees, trying to catch his breath until he felt a pinch in his neck. He cursed when he saw the turian skull symbol on the armored turian before he blacked out.

* * *

Caius opened his eyes to notice that he was just in his undersuit, groaning at a pounding headache as he looked around. He was in a dark room, hands and feet cuffed to a chair. Great so slicing his way out was out of the question. The door opened and he looked up to see the last turian he expected to see.

"Tibetus, you're uglier than the last time I saw you" Caius commented quietly and Tibetus sneered.

"Still a smartass huh? If I was in your position I would shut my mouth." Caius snorted.

"We use our mouths other than eating so that's not possible, guess that's why you failed science class." Tibetus punched Caius in the face and he could taste his blood from the impact.

"You've been a headache to me over the years but that won't be an issue soon enough"

"Oh so you're going to kill me"

"Of course but not like this, you're the icon for halfbreeds so I'm to broadcast your death all over the galaxy." Caius frowned.

"You do realize you need special kind of equipment for that right?"

"Of course I do, you have an hour left to live," Tibetushummws before left the room with the rest of his men. Caius smirked as he looked around.

"Should've not left me alone, there was a reason why someone always had to stay with me when I was a toddler." He muttered to himself as he tested the cuffs. He definitely needed to pick the lock for these but he needed to find a pin. Looking around carefully he clicked in annoyance, there wasn't going to be a pin here. He needed to think of something and fast or else his brains would get blown out. Caius then heard a scraping sound coming from the vents. Frowning he looked up and saw something the resembled a pin hang over the edge as if waiting. Conveniently it was right above where his hands were and once he cupped his hands the pin went over the edge and right into his waiting grasp.

"Thanks Kanus, still saving my ass" Caius smiled as he quickly got to work on unlocking the cuffs, it wasn't long before he heard the triumphant click from his wrists and reached down to free his feet. Hearing the click again he hummed but he hadn't taken off the cuffs yet. If he had any chance of surviving this he needed to fool them into thinking he was still bound. Despite how annoying it was, Caius rearranged the cuffs so he still looked tied but still able to move when the time called for it.

Just as Tibetus promised they came back an hour later. A rather large-looking camera in tow and they set it right in front of him.

"So are you the leader of this new organization?" Caius hummed and Tibetus gave him a glare.

"Of course I am"

"Huh, so what's it called?"

"Palavi"

"Wow no creativity there" Caius tsked and Tibetus growled.

"This isn't art school so I could care less about creativity."

"So why are you joined up with other species?"  
"Because we share the same goal."

"And that is?" Tibetus scoffed.

"To wipe out the asari of course, they've been on their pedestal for too long. It's disgusting the halfbreeds they create, just because they have a turian "father" does not give them the right to walk around here like they're one of us, and you're the icon for them. That's why killing you will not able state a bold message but put fear into their hearts for once that they will not be the top species any longer." Caius shook his head.

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I've done my research, they have an artifact that will destroy them. I just have to find it" Tibetus hummed.

"Why are you freely telling me all this?"

"Because you're going to die anyway and it's fun to gloat. Are we ready?" An armored turian nodded as he handed Tibetus a pistol that cleaned up and shiny for the show.

"Yes sir"

"Turn it on." Caius saw the red light on the camera blink on and he quickly but discreetly scanned the room. One, two...four. There were four of goons in the room and by the way they were holding their guns they didn't look very experienced with them. Obviously there for show, didn't matter to him since it would make his escape easier. While he had been scoping out the room Tibetus had already started with his speech.

"-We have the asari to thank for all the halfbreeds in the galaxy that think their one of us. No more! As an example of how serious we are I present you will the ultimate half-breed Spectre Caius Vakarian." Crap he needed to pay attention, the timing needed to be just right. A second too soon and it would give them time to recover from the shock and have an easier chance to kill him. A second too late and blue would be all over the wall.

"Would you like to say by to your parents?" Tibetus smirked and Caius sighed dramatically.

"I would be we have a special handshake and everything so it wouldn't feel the same-"

"Just shut up!" Tibetus growled as he aimed the pistol at the side of his head. Wait for it Caius, patience it not your strongest quality but this will have to be an exception.

"Say goodbye to your son Jane Shepard and Garrus Vakarian." Just before he pulled the trigger Caius's hand shot up and grabbed his wrist. Quickly aiming it away from his head and to one of the turians which caused him to collapse from the shot to the chest. Caius followed by a hard punch to Tibetus chest, taking the gun away from him while he was wheezing on the floor. Caius managed to shoot two of the armored turians before the last one tackled him to the ground with a good punch to the nose. Growling Caius knocked him out with the butt of the pistol before getting up. Tibetus was nowhere to be found as he looked around while blue trickled done his nose.

"Always the damn nose" Noticing the camera was still on he wiped his nose before rushing out in front of it with his best carefree smile. "Uh due to some technical difficulties we are going to have to stop this little interruption so please go on with your daily lives so...peace!" he stuck out his long blue tongue and held up two fingers before shutting off the camera. Probably wasn't appropriate in this situation but hopefully it will take out any fear that people had and it was a message to his parents that he was fine. He searched for any previous important video files but finding none he destroyed the camera.

"I think they finally broke my nose Kanus because this hurts like hell" he huffed when he heard the echo of a snicker.

"Shut up and just keep a look out please. The bastards took out my omni tool implant so I need to borrow one…" Caius hummed as he grabbed one of the turians wrists and used his talon to make an incision of where the omni tool should be. He let a triumphed chirp when he took out the omni tool, as much as he wanted to use it right now he needed to clean it first before-

A scraping sound stopped his thoughts and he took that as a cue to move his ass. Standing up Caius grabbed the chair and placed it under the vent before hopping onto it. He punched out the vent which caused his hands to bleed but that was the last thing on his mind right now. Thanks to the fact that he was just in his undersuit he was able to slip inside the vent without too much trouble, stopping to shoot the legs of the chair before placing the vent back in place. Now he needed to find a lab or a medbay to put his omni tool implant in so he could communicate with his parents to take him off whatever planet he was on. Caius growled when his fringe got caught the third time and really wished that it was shorter for the momment.

"I'm going to kill Tibetus for putting me through all this crap" He grumbled just as his hand went through over the vent he was crawling over. Letting out a trill as he tumbled head first into a medbay. Caius groaned in pain when his nose made contact with the floor, standing up he was relieved that he was in the medbay and quickly disinfected the implant.

"This is gonna hurt" he sighed as he grabbed a needle and surgical suture. Caius went through the tedious task of getting the needle ready before he slipped the implant into the slit of his wrist. He took a deep breath before he began to sow the slit, holding his madablies tight against his face to try not to make any noise but Spirits was it painful. Since the slit was small it only took a couple minutes to sew it up. Finishing it up he cut the string with his talon and in seconds he was able to open up the omni tool, typing away to video call his mother.

"Come on, answer it mom…" Caius said as he tapped his foot impatiently for several seconds before the screen blinked and his mother's face filled the screen.

"Caius! Are you alright?!" Caius gave her a weak reassuring smile since he was still in a lot of pain.

"Yes I'm fine, are you able to locate me with this on?"

"Y-yes I should be able to;" Lana said with her voice wavering. He could tell by her subvocals that she was pretty shaken up from the whole attempt at his execution. Actually, they all looked shaken up, especially his parents but he couldn't dwell on that right now.

"Good, how long should I have this on?"

"Um, a few minutes and you need to stay in the same spot to be accurate." Caius nodded.

"Alright, good thing I'm not-" Caius turned his head to the door when he heard it hiss open and cursed before ducking to cover as shots rang out from a group of armored turians.

"Caius?!" He heard his father's anxious voice call him and he glanced at the screen.  
"I'm fine just hurry up with the locating thing!" He hissed as he fired out a string of bullets towards the turians. Taking a couple of them out before ducking for cover again. This back and forth went on for several minutes and he would have killed more but the pistol that he got from Tibetus was definitely for show. The shooting then stopped and Caius could hear them scurry out of the room.

"Um Caius you need to get out of there now;" Lana said in an anxious tone and he frowned.

"What's the hurry?"

"There's a bomb that is going to go off in five minutes."

"What?! How the hell do you know that?!" Caius trilled as he immediately got out of cover, of course, he wasn't too surprised to see the red lock on the door, vents again.

"I was scanning the building and I saw a bomb within the building just as the activated it. Luckily I was able to find out how much time you have, not a lot by the way."

"Thanks for the confidence" Caius grunted as hopped onto a table that he pushed under the opening to climb through the vents again.

"I'll guide you to the nearest exit using the vents so listen carefully." Caius rolled his eyes before sighing.

"Alright go"

"You're going to reach a cross path in a few seconds so when you get there go left." Caius nodded before he cursed when he bumped his head just as he moved to go left. Lana continued to give him directions until he was jumping down the vent and making a beeline for the exit door.

Just as he reached the door, however, the lock turned red and he growled in frustration before he fingers flew over it to try to unlock it.

"Caius you have to-" Lana's voice suddenly cut out, the video also went static which made him curse. Of course, they would cut off the communications at the most important moment.

"20, 19, 18" The robotic female voice echoed throughout the whole building. Caius looked around for an alternative escape and noticed a window big enough for him to go through. With that in mind, he turned to run back far enough to give him the running start he needed to go through the window.

"10, 9, 8" Caius ran full speed towards the window, praying to the Spirits that it wasn't bulletproof. Not only would he have one hell of a headache but he wouldn't live long to feel it.

"5, 4-" Caius burst through the window and landed head first onto the ground before he began to tumble down a steep hill. Soon the ground shook and debris was flying in all different directions. Luckily he was far enough not to get engulfed in the explosion but close enough for a few of them to smack into him at painful high speeds. He continued to tumble down the hill in what felt like forever before he came to a stop at the bottom. Flat on his face.

Caius groaned and laid there for a few minutes to catch his breath. Dirt was in his mouth and his whole body hurt, his nose was bleeding again and he was exhausted. Spirits did he just want to lay there and let the animals eat him but he couldn't. He needed to survive because he had a big job to do and he promised Kanus that he would take care of Kania, and then there was Lana and his family. How was he supposed to enjoy having a first girlfriend and take care of Kania dead? Despite his body's protests he forced himself up on his feet before checking his omni tool. Communications were still down, the only option left was to wait for them as long as he could. The first thing he needed now was food and water which shouldn't be too hard to find since this planet was abundant in plant-

Caius turned his head when he heard a very alien roar in the distance, he sighed.

"Let's just hope they come here soon."


	11. Survival

Caius picked up a plump green bug and grimaced. Spirits he didn't want to eat the squirmy insect but they were known to be filled with protein and it was a quick way to cure his hunger. He gulped before popping the insect in his mouth and quickly chewed, gagging at the taste but forced himself to swallow. Caius shivered in disgust before he picked up another one of those green bugs and kept going through the process of chewing, trying not to vomit, and ultimately swallowing it until he was relatively "full." With a sigh he kneeled down in front of the pond he decided to camp in front of and cupped his hands to drink the refreshing clear water before washing his face. It had already been a day since the explosion, well a day on this planet. He couldn't think of what time it was on the Normandy, actually, he could hardly think at all with a pounding headache and pain in his nose every time he sneezed. He wasn't able to get much sleep since Lana wasn't here and that...thing that kept roaring all night which would always bolt him awake if he somehow managed to fall asleep. Plus it didn't help that this place made him uneasy, sure it was gorgeous, but from movies he's watched to personal experience out in the field, it was usually the peaceful and beautiful places that were the most dangerous. Every creature he came across made him paranoid, he spent hours yesterday watching the bugs he ate to see if they were safe to eat. Luckily he hadn't run into any large carnivores or whatever that thing was in the distance...yet. He shouldn't count himself lucky just yet, when he was finally on the Normandy, safe in a warm bed, then he could mark it down. With those thoughts left in his head, he checked his omni tool again to see if the communications were up.

"Of course not" Caius sighed when there was just static and moved towards a tree to sit back against it. "I have one hell of a story to tell Kania huh Kanus?" he was met with a pebble being flicked at him and Caius stuck his tongue out before closing his eyes. Spirits he was tired...maybe he could be able to sleep now that he was this exhausted...

Caius jolted awake and looked around to see it was night though he didn't feel rested at all, plus there was an urgent invisible push against his shoulder.

"What is it Kanus?" Caius yawned and a pebble was thrown towards the bushes to his left. Using his incredible hearing gifted from being a turian he listened for anything abnormal, he could hear footsteps. Large heavy ones slowly heading towards him, Caius quickly got up and climbed up the thick tree that thankfully had thick branches to hold his weight. Luckily it had enough leaves to conceal him and sat there quietly, not wanting the owner of those footsteps to see him at all.

A minute later there was a rustle in the bushes before a huge shadow loomed out, turians were able to see in the dark so it didn't take long for him to make out the creature and boy was he glad Kanus woke him up in time.

The closest comparison to its size would have to be a sky car, it had six legs, three on each side. With a tail that was half of its length, narrow yellow eyes and teeth made to shred. The huge tan creature sniffed the air and Caius's held his breath, fearing that it could smell him. After a few moments, he relaxed when the animal went to the pond to lap up the cool water with its long green tongue. Caius inwardly groaned when it decided that the best sleeping spot had to be right there next to the pond. Well, it was a good thing he already some "rest" because it was definitely going to be a long night.

Caius stayed in the tree until te sun showed itself through the trees and even when the monster of a creature got up to leave for a couple of hours to make sure it was far away from him. Spirits he did not want to feel its claws and teeth rip into him. No thank you. His muscles ached from being in the same position for so long and embraced the relief when he climbed down rather sloppily since his leg had fallen asleep.

"Well let's try for bugs and fruit for breakfast Kanus" Caius grumbled before a purple fruit was thrown at him and hit the side of his face. Rubbing his mandible with a glare in the direction the fruit came from he took a bite of it. Waiting for a...sweet taste? Caius took another bite and hummed in delight. It was plump with juices and damn was it good.

"Where did you find it Kanus?" there was a scratching sound to his left and he went over to the sound to find a whole bush of these fruits.

"Thank you again Kanus" he chirped as he began to happily eat the fruits until his omni tool blinked, opening it up he saw an incoming call and quickly patched it through. Anxiously waiting as he continued to see static until it began to clear up and revealed his parents along with the gang.

"Caius! I knew you were still alive!" Jane said happily and Caius smiled seeing his mother.

"What gave that away?"

"A mother's instinct of course even though some of the crew thought I was crazy. We're already starting to land the Normandy near your location." At that Caius looked up to see the Normandy land in the distance.

"Hmm, it will probably take me about thirty minutes to-" He stopped when he felt something wet and slimy plop onto his head along with a low growl. Caius gulped.

"Wrex do you have your rocket launcher?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because...you're going to need it!" He trilled as bolted towards the direction of the Normandy as the behemoth behind him let out a huge roar as it charged after him. Caius had to keep moving in different directions to throw it off or else it would have easily caught up to him. At one point he tripped before tumbling down a hill yet again, why is it the hills!

Caius caught glimpses of the animal sliding at a cautious rate behind him before his rolling came to a stop in a clearing. Thankfully the Normandy and the crew were in front of him with their weapons drawn. He quickly got up and immediately felt pain in his left ankle but adrenaline caused him to ignore it as he limped over to Wrex.

"Give me one of your shotguns" Wrex frowned.

"Little pyjak you look awful. Just get into the ship and-"

"Look this thing has gotten on my last nerve, he kept me up the first night with his roaring, then I had to stay up in a tree for hours because he was right below me snoring away without a care in the world. Then he spit on top of my head and made me run all the way here and tumble down another hill now please give me a gun!" Wrex immediately handed him a shotgun with a grunt.

"We'll make sure his brains get blown out little pyjak."

"Thank you."

The behemoth finally made it down the hill and burst into the clearing with its alien roar, everyone began to fire at it along with Jane and Wrex's using their biotics. Even with so many distractions, it had its heart set out on Caius as it charged at him, following his movements with determination. However, he could only dodge it for so long in his condition before it was finally able to pin him down. Caius made sure his grip was firm on the shotgun and waited until its jaws fully opened. Aiming the gun towards its mouth before pulling the trigger, dark green splattering everywhere. It's eyes no longer having any signs of life in it before rolling to its side with a loud thud. Caius let out an exhausted sigh as he laid on the ground and closed his eyes. He could hear someone running over to him and by scent, he could tell it was his mother.

"Caius are you okay?!"

"Other than broken nose I'm just mostly exhausted, and I think I pulled a muscle or something with my leg when I tripped." Caius yawned as he sat up and his mother kneeled down next to him before she immediately hugged his head to her armored chest tightly. His father was close behind, also kneeling down to hug his son with a purr. Caius hugged them back until Jane began to give kisses to his head.

"Mom!" He trilled as he tried to move his head out of her hold but she had a strong grip.

"I almost lost you twice so let me have this moment!" she huffed before giving one last kiss to his cheek. Caius grumbled as he rubbed his cheek as Garrus touched foreheads with his son.

"I've never seen her so pale when she was watching the screen." Jane snorted.

"I'm surprised you caught a glimpse with your pacing, you practically indented the floor."

"And punched a terminal" Wrex smirked and when Caius stood up the scarred krogan pulled him into a tight hug. "I'm glad you're alive little pyjak, I knew a simple turian and explosion couldn't take you down."

"Wrex I can't breathe" Caius gasped out and Wrex grunted an apology before releasing him. Caius saw Lana over his shoulder shuffling her feet. He held his arms out to her and with a turian smile, she went over to him to give him a hug.

"It's good to be back, this place gives me the creeps" Caius hummed and Lana chuckled.

"I can see why, come on let's get fixed up because you look like hell."

"Spirits I feel like it" He sighed as he limped his way back on the Normandy.

"Caius we can do this later, you should be resting, you sprained your ankle after all" Lana sighed as Caius limped to the war room with her.

"No I learned some very important information, and I heard you were able to figure out the pattern so I want to hear it," Lana grumbled about him being stubborn which he chose to ignore as he found a seat in the war room. Wrex and his parents were also there so he went straight to the point of telling them everything Tibetus had slipped out.

"Good thing he doesn't know that much but if he found out the Nilien in the first place he'll eventually find out that it can actually advance the turians" Garrus commented before Caius hummed.

"Not if we find the base by interrogating one of them, Lana I've heard you've found the pattern so what is it." Lana brought her datapad and began to scroll through before speaking.

"Well, none of the information matched until I got to family background. It seems like wherever they go they try to take out as many asari "halfbreeds" they've been going at a zigzag effect across the galaxy according to the mass relays they've passed."

"Can you predict where they'll hit next?" Jane asked and Lana nodded before looking back down at her datapad.

"If I'm right on this then they'll be heading to the Citadel next." Caius's heart dropped. It would mean that Kania and Rila were also in danger.

"And you mentioned that they will try to get anyone that is a half-breed?" He asked quietly and Lana nodded.

"Yes though they still try to get the important asari too." Caius rubbed his face as Jane glanced up at the ceiling.

"Joker set a course for the Citadel."

"Alright Commander." Caius stood up and limped out of the war room towards his room. Lana followed after a few minutes and found him sitting on the edge of the bed loading a pistol with a thermal clip.

"You should be resting" she commented and Caius snorted without looking at her.

"You and I both know that's not possible unless you're here."

"Yeah, I wasn't able to sleep well the past several nights." Caius frowned.

"I was gone that long?" Lana sighed.

"Yeah, everyone was worried and when we saw that galactic interruption…" she trailed off and cleared her throat before gesturing to his ankle. "Did you put some omni gel on that?" Caius blinked and finally looked at her.

"Um no I haven't yet." Lana rolled her eyes before getting some omni gel from her drawer and heading over to him. Since he was in more comfortable clothes it didn't take long to apply it to his ankle.

"How's your nose?" Caius sighed.

"Still hurts when I sneeze but I don't feel any constant pain." Lana hummed and placed a pillow under his ankle before sliding into bed next to him with a datapad so she can work while he slept.

"Nurse Lana can you kiss my boo boo" Caius purred as he pointed at his nose, without looking up from her datapad she shook her head.

"Go to sleep." Caius huffed.

"Aren't you supposed to do this after we've mated?" Lana frowned.

"Do what?"

"Deprive me of affection. I've seen my mom do it to my dad, never seen him so disappointed."

"Will you go to bed if I do?"

"Yes;" She turned to kiss his nose before going back to typing away at her datapad while Caius smirked.

"Thank you nurse Lana" he hummed before getting comfortable on the bed to sleep. Lana rolled her eyes again with a soft chuckle. Caius took comfort in hearing her laugh but his mind was still clouded with worry over Kania. Hoping he would make it in time.


	12. Out of Time

"What did Aria send you?" Caius asked as he closed the doors in the main battery while Trey brought up his omni tool.

"She gave me information that suggests Palivi had ordered a large shipment of bombs. Only these seem to be intended to hit a larger area than Nilia." Caius quietly cursed as he looked at the information.

"Well, it's a good thing we'll be at the Citadel in an hour." Trey hummed in agreement before he cleared his throat.

"So we're really heading to the Citadel huh?"

"We have to, the asari councilor is in danger plus the rest of the asari population."Caius crossed his arms. "You know ever since we've announced that we're heading there you seem to be getting increasingly nervous every day."

"What makes you say that?" Trey asked quietly as he took his time to close his omni tool.

"I may have a human mother but I still have the ears of a turian. I can hear you sub vocals change every time we mention the timing of our arrival on the Citadel. Which brings me to my question. What has you so nervous about going to the Citadel?" Trey shuffled his feet before sighing.

"I just don't want to see my father."

"Oh, did he threaten you or-"

"No it's not like that, my father is Sparatus." Caius's brow plates raised in surprise.

"You're the son that went missing. I knew you looked familiar."

"Well it's a good thing I left before getting my clan markings" Trey muttered and Caius shook his head.

"Why did you leave?" Trey didn't meet his eyes as he spoke.

"Because I'm a biotic...I found out what the turian military do with them. My father never knew I was one since he was so busy working with being a councilor. I...did not want to disappoint him…'' Caius tapped his talons against the arm they were resting on.

"Who else knows?"

"Only Barbar and you. Oh, and Aria." Trey gave him a frantic look.

"Please don't tell anyone else Caius!"

"Trey I-"

"Please!" Caius sighed as he rubbed his face.

"Alright, I won't tell anyone." Trey let out a relieved sigh but Caius stopped him.

"But if something happens on the Citadel I expect you to be there without a peep." Trey nodded.

"Don't worry I will." Caius gave him a small smile.

"Good, and now I have to look for my mother to tell her about this" just as Caius turned to leave Trey spoke up.

"How did you do it?"

"Do what?" Caius asked as he turned back around.  
"Deal with your parents being practically galaxy heroes." Caius hummed in thought before answering.

"Well, of course, everyone treated me differently, teachers gave me more homework and then when I first entered boot camp the general there put me up against geth in a simulator by myself. Oh and then some people in the academy made fun of my fringe." Trey raised his brow plates.

"Damn, they probably expected that you would be a Spectre." Caius nodded.

"Yep and they were right but I didn't care about their expectations. I just cared about my own and my parents. Now I wouldn't know exactly how Sparatus feels since I'm not a father but if you embrace your biotic abilities and just prove yourself that you won't be shackled by the turian idea of biotics then I'm sure he'll be proud of you and relieved to see his son after so many years." Trey sighed.

"Yeah you're probably right, but I don't feel ready to see him just yet." Caius held up his hands.

"Take all the time you need." Trey gave him a friendly smile.

"Thanks, Caius" Caius hummed before opening the main battery door to find his mother so he could tell her about the possible bombing of the Citadel.

* * *

Caius adjusted his visor in the skycar before looking at his parents.

"I'm going to check on Kania and Rila before meeting you guys at the Citadel tower." Garrus nodded.

"Alright, just be careful out there. It may have been two weeks since we've rescued you but you're still a target." Caius gave him a reassuring smile as the skycar landed.

"I'll be fine, hopefully, you can convince the council before I get there." He hummed as he got out. Luckily his nose and ankle had completely healed by then so he didn't have trouble rushing over to her chocolate shop. Bursting through the doors he took a moment to catch his breath as Rila looked at him with wide eyes.

"Caius I didn't know you were coming to the Citadel."

"Sorry I couldn't tell you since it was too risky and plus we need to talk" Rila frowned before she gestured for him to follow here towards the back. As soon as he went through she closed the door.

"What is it?"

"Has anyone suspicious talked with you or threatened you?" Rila shook her head.

"No why?" Caius sighed.

"I can't say anything now but I want you to stay in the shop until you have to close, when you do message me and I'll escort you and Kania home. By the way where is she?" Rila blinked.

"Um, she went with my assistant to the park." Caius immediately turned to leave the shop and while rushing over to the park he brought up his omni tool.

"Wrex take Trey with you to the chocolate shop Rila works at. I want to make sure she stays safe while I get Kania from the park." Wrex grunted.

"Alright pyjak."

Arriving at the park Caius frantically looked around and felt relieved when he saw Kania playing in the sandbox with Rila's assistant watching her from the bench. Walking over to her with a smile it didn't take long for her to spot him and when she did she let out a squeal before standing up to run over to him.

"Uncle Caius!" Caius laughed as he picked her up to hug her tightly which she easily returned.

"Hey sweetpea, I'm sorry I haven't been able to contact you but it was for your own safety." Kania frowned like her mother did.

"My own safety?"

"Yes but I'll explain it later. Right now we have to take you back to the shop."

"Is it for my safety?"

"Yes,, " Kania sighed.

"Okay." Caius gestured for the assistant to follow before carrying Kania back to the shop. Relieved when he saw Wrex with Trey.

"Good you guys are here. I'm going to head to the council meeting and I trust you'll keep them safe." Wrex patted him on the shoulder.

"Of course little pyjak. Good luck with the council, I know how much they'll try to deny everything." Caius snorted in agreement and just as he turned to leave Kania tugged on his hand.

"You'll be back soon right?" She said with a pout, with a smile Caius kissed her cheek.

"Of course I will now behave for them okay?" Kania nodded and Caius smiled at her once more before jogging out of the shop to the Citadel tower.

He wasn't surprised when he heard his parents raised voices as he stepped off the elevator.

"Why do you always do this?! Every time we try to warn you-you don't listen and then are surprised when it happens anyway!" Jane shouted.

"Has she ever given you a false warning?!" Garrus growled out before Sparatus shook his head.

"A bomb shipment from Omega is hardly proof. The terminus systems are known to use any type of weapons against each other, bombs are no exception."

"No pirate ship would order this many large bombs! You are all in danger! Especially you Councilor Tevos! That's why we need to evacuate you immediately!" Caius hissed and the salarian counselor Valern looked at them with cold eyes.

"We are not moving anywhere unless you have solid proof. Imagine the humiliation that would bring with a false evacuation." Caius screeched in outrage.

"It's solid proof! You're just too scared that-" the whole tower shook as a distant explosion could be heard. Glass windows bursting at the force as everyone covered their to evade the sharp glass. A few moments later a turian C-Sec ran over to them panting.

"They're reports coming through of a large fleet gathering around the Citadel! We don't recognize the ships!" Caius growled.

"They're here."


	13. Chaos in the Citadel

"Now I'm tempted to say I told you so but now's not the time for that" Jane commented as Councilor Tevos looked around frantically.

"We need to go on the Destiny Ascension!" Caius shook his head.

"It's too obvious. You should go on the Normandy, it's a discreet ship after all." Garrus nodded in agreement.

"He's right, if they try to gun us down at least we'll be able to evade them more easily.'' Caius nodded before gesturing at the councilors.

"You guys take them to Normandy and I need to make sure Kania and Rila are safe."

"Go, just be careful," Jane said as she gathered the councilors and Caius turned to run out of the Citadel Tower.

As soon as he exited the building he could hear people screaming all around him, along with explosions continuing to go off in the distance. Thanks to his long legs he was able to get to the shop in no time. Relieved when he saw it hadn't been affected by the first explosion. However, when he ran inside he saw Kania crying hysterically in the corner with Wrex, Trey, and Rila trying to reassure her.

"Where's Uncle Caius!" She cried out just as he rushed over to her with a purr.

"Don't worry I'm right here sweetpea" She looked up at him with a sniffle as she held her arms out to him to be picked up. He complied with a reassuring smiling before looking at Rila.

"I'm going take you guys to the Normandy, you'll be safe there."  
"What's going on Caius?" Rila asked as they ran out of the shop with Wrex and Trey, her voice wavering which was understandable and he answered calmly to try to prevent her from freaking out.

"The new organization Palavi is after the asari and they've made their stop here," Rila muttered something about a goddess but he was too preoccupied with the static of the comm from his visor as his mother's voice came through along with shots ringing out.

"Caius we need backup, we're dealing with a lot of Palavi and my biotics can only do so much." Caius cursed quietly before answering.

"Where are you?"

"We're at a bar near the Citadel Tower."

"Alright, I'll get there as fast as I can" Caius quickly rushed over to a cab skycar and opened it before turning to Wrex. "I need you to take Rila and Kania to the Normandy," Wrex grunted before clapping him on the shoulder.

"Be careful out there little pyjak" Caius gave him a nod.

"Keep them safe for me"

"They won't have a scratch" Caius gave him a relieved smile before handing Kania over to Rila who was already in the skycar. Well tried to since she clinging onto him.

"Kania you need to go with your mother."

"Come with us Uncle Caius! Please!" Caius sighed as he managed to unlatch her from him before passing her over to Rila.

"I can't sweetpea" His heart broke when Kania started to cry hysterically.

"Don't go!" Caius kissed her tear streaked cheeks and purred.

"I promise I'll come back to you okay?" Rila gave him a worried look while Kania sniffed.

"Please be careful;" Rila said softly and Caius gave her nod while he touched foreheads with Kania before shutting the door. He could hear Kania scream in the in skycar for him as it lifted and took off. He rubbed his face before turning to Trey.

"How are your biotic abilities?"

"Well they're a bit rusty since Omega but I think I'll manage."

"Good enough for me. Let's go" the two males began to run to the bar his parents were hold up in. Since he lived in the Citadel all his life he knew shortcuts that would get them there in no time.

Upon arriving he could see his parents in the bar with a bunch of Palavi soldiers surrounding them outside. Caius used a ladder to climb onto a roof with Trey right behind him since it was the best place for cover. Taking out his sniper he immediately fired at one of the soldiers, he could tell that with him firing at their backs they immediately panicked. Trey was using shockwave to separate them and with their combined forces it wasn't long before every one of them was dead. Caius and Trey headed down the ladder and towards the bar where his parents and the council were.

"Everyone alright?" Caius asked when he entered the bar, despite all the broken glass and furniture no one seemed injured.

"We're fine, just a few scratches and bruises when they exploded the front windows" Garrus sighed.

"Trey?" Everyone turned to Sparatus who had so many emotions race across his face as he stared at Trey, who by the way looked very uncomfortable.

"Hey, dad…" Trey murmured without meeting his eyes.

"So what's going on with the Citadel fleet? There shouldn't be this many guys" Caius asked to change the subject since Sparatus had finally settled on one emotion, anger. Which was understandable but this wasn't the best time to throttle him which he looked ready to do at any moment.

"They went through our defenses…" The asari councilor said quietly and Caius frowned.

"How? It's the Citadel fleet for Spirits sake."

"From the looks of it their shields are too strong, we they may have used reaper tech to increase the strength of their shields. Their firepower is no joke there either." Jane grumbled and Caius sighed.

"So what's the plan now, I know for sure that C-Sec is not equipped to handle this kind of attack."

"They going to evacuate everyone with the remaining ships, they leave in an hour" the human councilor commented.

"How are they going to evacuate five million people in an hour?"Caius scoffed.

"During the Reaper War the ships were upgraded to be able to carry the wave of refugees coming from the other worlds;" Tevos said and Caius shook his head.

"Fine but an hour won't be enough. There needs to be a way to give them more time."

"We have the turrets but we haven't used them in years. They'll need some calibrating before you can put them online" Sparatus said quietly and Caius nodded.

"Alright, I'll message Lana and Barbar so they're ready to go when we arrive. Let's hurry before more of them come."

The group rushed out of the bar and through shortcuts to get to the Normandy as quickly as possible. Caius sent a message to Lana and Barbar along the way and when they arrived they were both waiting on the ramp.

"Are you coming, Trey?" Sparatus said with narrowed eyes.

"No we'll need him, with the Palavi around we need all the backup we can get." Garrus quickly pointed out since he could hear the anger in his subvocals. Garrus knew from experience as a parent himself that Sparatus needed time to cool down before speaking with his son. After all it's what Garrus needed when he was angry with his own son.

With a huff Sparatus turned and entered the Normandy, Trey let out a relieved sigh.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome but you need to talk to him eventually."

Trey nodded as the group made their way to the turrets with chaos all around them. It gave him chills to hear so many civilians screaming and running. He hoped that this would give them enough time to evacuate at least most of the population.

Once they arrived Garrus and Lana immediately went to work on the calibration while Barbar busied with fixing any damage that had been done to them over the years. In no time the turret Lana was working went online and immediately fired on the enemy ships.

"Damn it! The panel is on the top with this one." Barbar grumbled and Lana jogged over to him.

"Give me a boost and I'll fix it along with the calibrations." Barbar nodded as he cupped his hand so she could step on them.

"Good it will give me a chance to work on the more damaged one over there."

"Just be careful Lana" Caius warned and she waved him off.

"I'll be fine just go back to being the lookout." Caius sighed before he went back to "being the lookout" but made sure he could see Lana in the corner of his eye.

"This one is good to go" Garrus hummed as the turret started to fire and Barbar soon called out.

"This one too!"

"I just have a damaged cord over here, I'll be able to fix it with the upgrades I made with my omni tool" she hummed as she brought up her omni tool. Jane nodded.

"Good, that will be the last one. After this, we'll head back to the Normandy to get the council out of the Citadel. Hopefully, this will-" Jane stopped when there was another explosion except this one was close to them and caused the ground to tremble. Everyone lost their balance from the tremor that was accompanied by a screech with a thump. Caius looked up to see Lana limp on the floor with a burn on her left hand. Fear gripped him as he rushed over to her with his visor already scanning for a diagnostic. He checked her plus and breathing which were thankfully still there but weak.

"She was shocked but no broken bones from the fall," Caius said with his voice wavering.

"We need to get her back to the Normandy now," Jane said calmly to hopefully calm her son while she put medi gel on Lana's burn mark before Caius picked her up and started running back to the Normandy. His feet practically flew over the ground with the speed he was running through the shortcuts. He couldn't think of a time he ever ran this fast in his life, not even the creature made him run like this.

When they finally made it to the Normandy unscathed he cursed the decontamination chamber for being so damn slow. He tapped his foot impatiently until the door opened and he was immediately out the door and heading to the elevator to get to the med bay. He could hear his mother tell Joker to take off before she joined him in the elevator along with his father. It felt like forever had passed before the doors opened again and Caius rushed over to the med bay. While his parents told the doctor there what had happened he laid her gently on the exam bed.

"I'm sorry but I will have to ask everyone to leave so I can work properly." Caius frowned.

"But-"

"No buts Spectre you need to leave." Caius sighed as he turned to leave and Garrus patted him on the shoulder.  
"She'll be okay, she's a strong...what's the saying Jane?" Jane rolled her eyes with a smile.

"Cookie Garrus. Strong cookie"

"Why a cookie? You bite into them so easily."

"It's quirky"

"Okay but a cookie? Out of all the levo foods, your species chose a cookie to compare strength?" They continued to bicker about the cookie while Caius shook his head with a small smile.

"Thank you for trying to make me feel better"

"Did we? Even a little?" Jane asked hopefully and Caius nodded.

"Yeah, a little."

"Uncle Caius!" Caius turned towards the voice that belonged to the tiny asari who was running full speed at him from the elevator. With a smile, Caius knelt down to catch the toddler as she jumped into his arms. She hugged him tightly and he purred.

"See I told you I would come back." Wrex came over to them with Rila.

"She wouldn't stop crying until I told her you were on the ship" the krogan sighed and Caius gave him a smile.

"Well thank you for keeping them safe, and staying with them." Kania chose that time to yawn Rila gave her daughter a soft smile.

"Poor thing probably exhausted herself from the crying." Caius chuckled softly and stood up.

"I'll put her to bed so she can have a nap. You guys can sleep in the main battery since there's a cot when Lana would sleep from time to time there." Caius then turned to head to the main battery with the sleepy toddler in his arms.

When the door opened automatically he laid Kania on the cot before tucking her in and she rubbed her eyes.

"When will we go back home?" Caius sighed as he sat on the edge of the cot.

"I don't know sweetpea, everything is a mess right now so it might be awhile" Kania nodded as she curled up in the bed.

"At least I get to stay here with you;" she said softly just before closing her eyes. Caius smiled and softly purred to help her sleep. He stayed there for several minutes to make sure she was deeply asleep before getting up to leave. He tiptoed out of the main battery, only walking when to door closed behind him.

"The council want's to meet with us" Jane sighed and Caius rolled his eyes before following his mother to the war room.

"This is all your fault! Strongest fleet in the galaxy my ass!" The asari councilor shouted and Sparatus snarled.

"My fault! Maybe the turian fleet would have been more prepared for this kind of advancement from the enemy if you would stop being so hush hush about whatever the hell is going on!"

"Enough! What the hell is wrong with you! You are supposed to be representatives of your entire species and this is how you act in a crisis!" Caius growled and Sparatus huffed while Tevos sighed.

"Good you're here, now we can discuss where we're going to send the refugees along with-"

"Easy, Thessia" Caius said casually and Tevos frowned.

"Why Thessia?"

"Because since it's known for being the "Jewel of the Galaxy" with there being hardly any disease and famine along with a strong economy Thessia will be able to handle to millions of refugees."

"But-"

"We agree with our son;" Jane said smirked as she crossed her arms and Sparatus smirked.

"As do the rest of the council" Tevos narrowed her eyes.

"That's not your call to make."

"You can vote against it all you want but in the end, you're still outvoted. We're going to Thessia so make sure the hotels are ready" Caius hummed as he turned to leave. Spirits did he hate politics and polititions in general but he just hoped the turrets were enough to take at least three million refugees safely away from the Citadel. As much as he was angry for losing the Citadel he knew it was the right decision to take the civilians away. He would fight for his home but not at the risk of the civilians getting shot during a battle.

While heading towards the med bay he saw the doctor exit and he quickly rushed over.

"How is she?" The doctor smiled.

"She'll be fine, she's still unconscious and her burn will heal just fine with regular application of medi gel. Her heart seems unaffected by the shock but when she wakes I'll keep her in the med bay just to be safe." Caius let out a relieved sigh, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"How long till she wakes up?"

"Could be an hour or two. Maybe several but it shouldn't go beyond that, I can already see the question in your eyes so yes you can see her." Caius smiled before walking into the med bay, he paused briefly before walking over to where Lana laid. He sighed as he gently grabbed her hand.

"I told you to be careful, didn't I? You are the only turian female to nearly give me a heart attack." Caius rubbed his thumb over her hand gently before he continued. "Well a good did come out of this...this experience made me realize that I…um...love you" He cleared his throat.

"There I said it so...don't go trying to get yourself killed, we have the turian babies to think of right?" Caius laughed nervously as he pulled up a chair so he could sit next to her. "Well I'm staying right here until you wake up" he hummed before he pressed his forehead against hers. Yep, he would wait and confess his feelings again even though it will be super embarrassing for him. Didn't think he was the mushy type but must be the effect of love as some people would say. If only he knew that Kanus was standing next to him with a broad smile on his face.


	14. Four Weeks of Normandy Shenanigans

Caius startled awake and looked around, realizing that he was still in the med bay he winced at the sorness of his muscles from falling asleep in a chair. He then looked to Lana who was finally awake with a smirk.

"Sorry I couldn't resist, you looked too cute with your head in yours arms on the bed." Caius chuckled and grabbed her hand.

"I'll let the 'cute' slide this time. How are you feeling?" Lana smiled.

"Blissful" Caius arched a browplate.

"So good then? No pain at all?" Lana hummed as she shook her head.

"Nope no pain since a certain turian said he loved me." Caius widened his eyes and shifted in his seat.

"O-oh you heard that…" Lana laughed.

"Of course, and for the record. I love you too." Caius perked up at that.

"Ah, so you're willing to be stuck with me for the rest of our lives?"

"Is that a bondmate proposal?" Caius hummed in thought.

"If it was would you say yes?" Lana rolled her eyes with a smile.

"Yes, and I want the flowers, candles, everything for that night." Caius gave a wink.

"I'll make sure to make the arrangments once you feel better" He purred before touching foreheads with her. Lana smiled and returned the affection until they heard the door in the med bay open. Kania came in holding a piece of paper close to her chest.

"I wanted to give Lana a get well card but if you're busy…" Caius chuckled as he stood up.

"No we're not busy and that was very sweet of you." He picked her up to bring her over to the bed to sit her down.

"I heard that you were shocked, it sounds very painful so I made you this." Kania smiled as she handed the card over to Lana. She opened it up with a broad turian smile and hugged Kania.

"Thank you, Kania, it means a lot since it did hurt quite a bit" Kania giggled as she hugged Lana back, a growl sounded from Kania's stomach and the young asari blushed a deep blue. Caius laughed.

"Let's see if we can get you girls something to eat, I'll be back" he hummed as he strolled to the door. As soon as it opened he ducked just as a pie pan full of cream flew over his head and onto the floor.

"Aw! you made me look bad if front of all the kids!" Jane pouted as a group of children of all different species giggled. Caius smirked.

"Didn't realize we had the company, and for the record mom I could hear you whispering and filling the pie pan with cream in there." Jane facepalmed herself.

"No wonder Wrex kept telling me it wouldn't work, and these are some of the children of refugees we took in. Wanted to brighten their spirits."

"It can still be salvageable" ujhnsuppiciousGarrus hummed before he smashed another pie pan full of cream into Caius's face. Everyone started laughing as Caius wiped cream out of his eyes, blinking as his long blue tongue flicked out to taste the cream.

"Classical whipped cream, at least you were kind enough not to put shaving cream." His mother was wiping tears from her eyes from laughing and he smirked when he thought of an idea. Holding his arms out he went over to his mother with purr while she gave him a suspicious look.  
"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I just want to give my lovely mother a hug"

"No you don't!" Jane turned to run but Caius lunged in time to catch her in a "hug," hugging her tightly he started to rub his face into her hair.  
"Caius let go! I just washed my hair!" Caius snickered as he continued to hug her.

"I just want to thank you for going through the trouble of bringing me to this world that's all."

"Caius if you don't let go of me in the next five seconds I swear-"

"Such hostility, you know you should make dad rub your feet. It sounds like you-" Caius trilled when Jane somehow slipped an arm out from his hold and put him in a headlock. She kicked 2221his spurs to weaken him enough to tackle him to the ground.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry, have mercy!"Caius yelped as he scrambled to get away only to be pulled back by his ankles along with his arm being pinned behind his back at an angle that hurt like hell.

"I yield! I'll give you my cookie dough ice cream if you let me go!" Caius immediately felt relief in his arm as his mother moved off of him and to the fridge to collect her reward. The children's laughter filled the air before their parents called for them back to the shuttle bay where they stayed. Garrus was still laughing as he helped his son up and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Congratulations on you and Lana, she's great for you."

"What about them?" Jane asked around a mouthful of cookie dough ice cream and Caius smiled.

"I'm going to take Lana as a bondmate. I kind of asked her in the med bay and she said yes." Jane squealed and dropped the pint of ice cream on the counter before rushing over to her son to give him a hug. She squeezed him tightly and Caius chuckled as he hugged her back.  
"I'm going to have a daughter in law! I'm one step closer to grandchildren! Oh! Maybe if I show her your baby pictures she'll more motivated!"

"Mom no!" Caius trilled as his mother ran to the med bay with him running after her. She managed to get in and lock the door in time, causing him to pound on the door. "Don't show her the pictures mom!" He groaned when he could hear the girls giggling inside, resting his forehead against the cool metal he sighed.

"How long til we get to Thessia?" Garrus snickered.

"About a month since we have to go at the pace of the other ships."

"Great."

* * *

WEEK 1 DAY 3

"Whats so funny?" Caius frowned as he climbed into bed with Lana, who was finally cleared from the med bay, giggling at her omni tool.

"Hehe you have a bubble mustache here" He rubbed his face with a sigh.

"She actually sent you my baby pictures?"

"And videos, oh! Look how cute you look in your little space outfit!" Caius groaned as he buried his head under the pillow and blankets in embarrassment. "Oh look at this picture! I've seen this on TV, what do humans call it...a sailor outfit?"

"That's it! We're turning that off!" He huffed as he sat up to turn off her omni tool.

"No! I want to watch a video first!" They started to playfully wrestle, him trying to turn off her omni tool while she kept trying to push him away. Of course, their wrestling eventually turned into that special kind of "wrestling."

* * *

WEEK 1 DAY 6

"So where are you going to bite each other?" Wrex asked as he took a huge bite of his food. They were all in the mess hall for lunch and Caius smirked since he could hear the embarrassment in Lana's sub vocals.

"Isn't that a bit personal Wrex?"

"No, since we've talked about worse topics." Caius sighed.

"True" Lana frowned.

"How could this not be the worst topic?"

"You haven't heard his version of the sex talk." Wrex sighed.

"Well since your not answering my question I guess we have to have the talk again. When a male and female pyjak like each other they-"

"The shoulder Wrex! Please let's not have the "talk" I really don't need Lana to be traumatized." Wrex snickered while Garrus sighed.

"The shoulder huh? Great choice even though your mother refused that spot." Jane rolled her eyes.

"The hip is just fine."

"Sure but the shoulder provides a bigger statement."

"That's what the rings are for."

"You can easily take them off!" His parents continued to bicker and Lana laughed softly.

"Is that what we're going to be like twenty years from now?" Caius hummed.

"Yep, we're already doing it now." Lana frowned.

"With what?"

"The stupid rug."

"It's not stupid!"

"I want to burn it every time my talon gets stuck in it!''

"I offered to trim them for you properly!" Now Lana and Caius were bickering too and Wrex sighed.

"If Bakara was here this would turn into a food fight."

* * *

WEEK 2 DAY 9

"Let's play never have I ever!" Joker exclaimed and Caius sighed.

"With that game you always find out information that is better buried."

"Come on guys it will be fun!" Everyone shook their heads before sitting on the couch in his mother's quarters. His parents, Wrex, Joker, Lana, Trey, and Barbar were there since his mother suggested that they all deserve a relaxing night after everything that's happened.

"Alright everyone knows the rules, say something you haven't done and if anyone else has they take a sip blah blah, now who wants to go first?" Jane asked and Joker raised his hand.

"I'll start, never have I ever...killed a thresher maw" Caius, his parents, and Wrex took a sip. Garrus arched a brow plate at his son.

"Wait, when did you kill a thresher maw?" Caius shrugged.

"About a couple years ago, I had to investigate a smuggling of a prothean relic and it was believed to be on Tuchunka. I was driving in a mako with my team and one just popped out of the sand, kind of...ran it over but at least we had the chance to make sure it was dead." Everyone chuckled before it was Trey's turn.

"Hmm, never have I ever...stole money from my parents." Caius tried to take a discreet sip but he winced when Jane gasped.

"When and how much?!"

"When I was fourteen and about...a thousand credits" Garrus punched his son right in the gut that knocked the air out of him.

"Thief" Garrus huffed and Caius was kneeled over trying to catch his breath.

"Sorry" He managed to gasp out as everyone else snickered.

"Barbar's turn" Garrus hummed and the batarian thought for a moment before replying.

"Never have I ever slept with a quarian." Caius was the only one to take a sip and everyone arched an eyebrow or browplate at him.

"What?"

"You managed to sweet talk a quarian into sleeping with you?" Trey chuckled and Caius shrugged.

"It's easier now that they're finally out of their suits. Anyway, dad you're up."

"Alright, hmm...never have I ever been kidnapped" Caius huffed as he took a sip.

"Now you're just being mean" He was surprised when Lana took a sip. "What happened with you?" Lana sighed.

"Well I grew up on the turian colony Taetrus and when I was thirteen these batarian slavers kidnapped me when I was walking home from school. Luckily I had my omni tool by then and I was able to overload the shuttle before it got too far. We ended up crashing and I broke my arm but luckily the other girls with me didn't get any serious wounds either."

"It's now scaring me how freakishly smart you are, if you were to kill me you'd probably poison me or something." Lana sighed wistfully.

"No that can be traced, it would have to be in an accident or look like one."

"Hear that everyone? Don't believe the suicide letter, while I'm still alive I'll go." Caius hummed in thought while everyone laughed. "Never have I ever...kissed someone of the same gender." Jane and Lana took a sip and Caius widened his eyes.

"Mom?! Lana?!" Jane shrugged.

"I was twenty one and on shore leave after a stressful mission." Caius then looked to his future mate and she also shrugged.

"It was a year ago and I got drunk in a club so I ended up kissing an asari." He shook his head.

"I knew with this game I was going to learn something weird." Joker snorted.

"You asked it."

"Joker shut up. Lana your turn." Lana hummed.

"Never have I ever been to Palaven." Of course, Caius and his parents along with Trey drank, the effects of the alcohol were starting to get to him if the light buzz was any indication.

"Alright my turn" Wrex grunted before continuing. "Never have I ever been in a threesome." Caius and Garrus took a sip but he almost spit out his drink when his mother also took a sip.

"With who?" Joker snickered and Caius threw a coaster at him.

''Why would you ask my mother that?! As if I really need to know that information!" Jane laughed

"It was with an asari and some guy."

"You hear that Caius, you could have been born an asari" Joker teased and Caius put down his drink before standing up.

"Just for that I'm burning your hat." Caius put him in a headlock playfully and Garrus hummed.

"So Lana, it looks like you're going to be the new pilot of the Normandy." Lana chuckled.

"At least I'll get a more comfortable chair."

* * *

WEEK 2 DAY 14

"I found a pack of Oreos!" Jane said excitedly as she entered the mess hall and Caius looked up from his datapad.

"Ooh, I haven't had these in a long time. Wrex you want one?"

"Hell yeah;" the krogan plopped down next to him while Jane started opening the package.

"What are those?" Lana asked while she took a sip of her dextro coffee.

"A human treat where they put a sweet cream in the middle of two chocolate cookies" Garrus answered with a shake of his head.

"It's the best damn thing in the universe" Jane commented when she finally opened it. Caius immediately snagged a cookie and happily popped it into his mouth. However, instead of tasting the sweet cream he tasted a minty paste. He immediately spit out the horrible combination along with Wrex and his mother.

"Ugh! It's toothpaste!" Jane coughed while Lana and Garrus were laughing their asses off.

"It actually worked!" Lana chirped and Caius narrowed his eyes at her.

"What did you do?!"

"We filled all the cookies with toothpaste and then heat sealed the bag so it looked like a new package," Garrus commented and Jane huffed.

"You ruined all the cookies!"

"At least your breath smells all minty" Garrus hummed while Lana snickered.

"Damn, I was so excited to eat them too" Wrex grumbled, Caius picked up the package and set it on the counter.  
"I think the crew should enjoy the rest of these cookies."

* * *

WEEK 3 DAY 18

"Can you pass me the sugar Kania?" Kania giggled as she passed him the empty cup. Caius pretended to put sugar in his tea cup before taking a sip of the fake drink. He was playing tea party with Kania and the other girls. They had begged him to play, how could he resist the puppy dog looks they were giving him?

"Are you done playing that cup game Caius?" a young turian boy asked as he came up to him. A human girl huffed.

"No, he's only played with us for an hour." A salarian boy countered.

"That's more than enough time!"

"No it isn't!" Caius cleared his throat to get them to stop fighting before it escalated.

"You know I'm kind of hungry here."

"Well lunch will be in thirty minutes" the turian boy responded and Caius shook his head.

"I'm not hungry for that."

"What are you hungry for?" Kania asked and he sighed wistfully as he stood up.

"I'm hungry for...children! Rawr!" The kids squealed before they started running away from him. Which they had plenty of space to do since they were in the shuttle bay. They eventually hid behind the crates and Caius called out.

"Hmm, I wonder where they could be...they certainly make lovely snacks." The children giggled just before Caius peaked his head over one of the crates. "Boo!" They squealed again and started to run but Caius managed to catch a human boy before pretending to eat him.

Lana was watching from a distance with a broad turian smile on her face.

"Adorable isn't it?" Lana turned to a human female that was standing beside her and chuckled.

"Yeah it's pretty cute."

"Aren't you guys in a relationship?"

"Yeah, he's my um...what do you humans call it...fiance'." The female smiled.

"Well, he's certainly a keeper. He started reading to them several days ago and it's nice to see their spirits lifted after what happened." Lana gave her a sympathetic smile.

"I couldn't imagine what that must of felt like to them, at least their smiling now."

"Ugh! My one weakness!" The two females looked back at Caius, seeing him dramatically collapse to the floor with his blue tongue sticking out.

"Lunch will be ready in five minutes!" Jane called from the elevator and Caius sat up.

"We will resume after but right now go ahead and eat."

"Aren't you coming with us Uncle Caius?" Kania asked with a pout and Caius chuckled.

"I'll catch up with you but I need to do some stuff here. Go or I'll chase you down" They giggled before running to the elevator. He stood up to stretch and the human female gave her a wave before heading to the elevator herself. Lana waved back before turning to Caius.

"Nice dramatic falling there" She teased and Caius stuck his tongue out before walking over to her.

"I tried but I hurt my funny bone in the process. Can you kiss it and make it feel better?" Lana rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure food will make it better, I can help with whatever you need to do down here so you can eat on time." Caius smiled.

"Thanks, I just need to take inventory of the supplies we have left."

"Lead the way, let's hurry because I'm starving."

* * *

WEEK 4 DAY 26

Lana dry heaved into the toilet while Jane rubbed her back in a circular motion.

"Did you bring the mouthwash?" Lana groaned and Jane shook the bottle to confirm.

"Yep, came prepared this time."

"Thank you" Lana wiped her mouth with toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet before she got up to wash her hands. Jane handed her the mouthwash and Lana took her time rinsing her mouth before spitting it out.

"Feeling better?" Lana nodded.

"Yeah a bit, I just hope Caius didn't see me running to the bathroom." Lana said as she walked out, only to run smack into Caius who was looking at her with an arched brow plate.

"You threw up again?" She sighed.

"Yes I did."  
"I see...excuse us mom I just need to speak to her for a moment." Jane nodded before she went off towards the elevator while Caius led Lana to his room. As soon as the doors were closed he turned to her with his arms crossed.

"Lana this is the third day in a row that you have vomited and you still haven't gone to the med bay." She clicked in annoyance.

"Because I don't want to go just to find out it's a stomach bug. It's pretty obvious that's what it is."

"You don't know that for sure. For all we know it could be a symptom of something more serious since you were shocked a month ago."

"The doctor cleared me for that!" Caius sighed as he rubbed his face.

"Lana your wellbeing is important to me and not just because you're my soon to be mate but also because you are part of this crew. It's my job to make sure the morale and the health of a crew are top notch so please go to the med bay." Lana sighed.

"Fine, I'll go later."

"No it's free at the moment so go now."

"Caius I have to work."

"Well if it's not serious then I'm sure it won't take long" He mocked and Lana growled.

"Fine! I'm going right now!" She huffed before turning to leave the room. When she entered the med bay she smiled at the doctor.  
"Hey Dr. Smith, I hope you're not too busy." Dr. Smith chuckled.

"You can call me Amanda, so what can I do for you?"

"Well I have been throwing up for a few days, I think it's just a stomach bug but it doesn't hurt to check."

"I see...what kind of birth implant did you say you had?"

"The one that controls the hormones so I don't get any nasty side effects. Plus it has a resistance to voltage shocks."

"What's the highest voltage it can resist." Lana hummed in thought.

"About...five hundred"

"Ah, and since you were shocked by a turret that has a higher voltage it's most likely that your implant malfunctioned."

"Oh, so that's why I'm feeling sick? My hormones are thrown off?" Amanda stood up to get the equipment to make an incision.

"That could be one possibility. Mind if I take out the implant to check?" Lana held out her arm.

"No, go ahead." Amanda smiled and once Lana had sat down she numbed the spot where the implant should be before making an incision.

"Have you been experiencing fatigue?" Lana thought for a moment before responding.  
"Yes actually, even when I haven't done much."

"Headaches?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Lana winced as Amanda pulled out the implant and Amanda sighed.

"Yep, it's definitely broken."

"Aw, that wasn't cheap either."

"I'm going to ask a couple personal questions but trust me this is relevant. How soon did you sleep with Caius when you were cleared from the med bay?" Amanda asked she cleaned the cut. Lana shifted in her seat in embarrassment.

"That night I was cleared."

"And how often since then?"

"Um...almost every day."

"Yep, we're going to need to take a blood test." Lana frowned.

"For what?"

"To see if you're pregnant." It was as if someone dumped cold water on Lana as she stuttered.

"W-what?" Amanda gave her a sympathetic smile as she got out the things she needed for taking the blood.

"From the symptoms you've been experiencing and the fact that your implant malfunctioned at the beginning of the month along with the fact you guys haven't been careful there's a high chance that you're pregnant. Just to make sure we'll take a blood test." Lana didn't even register the slight pain as Amanda began with the procedure.

"How long will the results take?" Lana asked quietly and Amanda replied.

"In a few days I should have it by then and...we're done." Amanda placed a band aid on the blue dot before Lana stood up and cleared her throat.

"Guess I'll see you in a few days…" Lana didn't wait for a reply as she quickly exited the med bay. Before she could go to the main battery someone caught her arm and she turned to see Caius, who was giving her a worried look.

"So what did the doc say?"

"She's um taking some tests."

"What kind of tests?"

"Just a blood one, nothing serious just making sure I'm not depriving my body of anything." Caius frowned.

"Okay...but why are you so distraught?" Lana inwardly cursed, it was times like these that she wished turians didn't have the hearing and sub vocals. It made it so difficult to lie as much as she didn't want to.

"The med bay just gave me some unpleasant memories, anyway I have to start calibrating for the day." His green eyes searched hers for a few moments before he let go.

"Alright just don't overwork yourself."

"I won't…" Lana mumbled before heading to the main battery. She was glad that Garrus wasn't there yet since she wanted to be alone right now more than anything. She hoped that the calibrations would distract her, even temporarily would be a treat. Lana looked down at her flat belly with a sigh before her fingers started flying over the console.


	15. New Additions

"So what's the verdict?" Lana laughed nervously as she sat down in the med bay. Amanda gave her a smile.

"Well, the verdict is that you're pregnant. Congratulations." Lana just stared at her for a few moments before rubbing her face.

"Are you able to tell how far along I am?" Amanda sighed.

"No, luckily we'll be arriving on Thessia in an hour so you can go to a hospital there to check. I'll buy some equipment so that we can easily have regular checkups to make sure the baby is healthy. Unless you plan on not keeping it?"

"No I'm keeping it, um well thank you. I just need some time to...process the news." Amanda gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Of course." Lana stood up and walked quickly out of the med bay, she bumped right into Jane in the process and gave her an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about that." Jane tilted her head at her.

"It's alright, you look like you have a lot on your mind." Lana sighed.

"A lot."

"Want to talk about it?" Lana smiled.

"If you're not too busy that would be great." Jane chuckled and hooked her arm through hers before leading her to the elevator.

"No not at all, I was just going to bother Garrus or my son. Whoever I encountered first. Of course, it's more entertaining to bother Caius" Lana laughed.

"By showing him the baby pictures?"

"Like I would leave that out." They giggled as the elevator doors opened, Jane lead Lana to her cabin and to the couch inside. Once they sat down Jane waited patiently for her to start, Lana took a deep breath.

"Well you should know that I'm...pregnant, found that out today and I plan on keeping it even though this isn't the ideal time." Jane smiled.

"I had a feeling that was the case since you were vomiting for a few days but I didn't want to say anything unless it was for sure. Have you told Caius yet?" Lana shook her head.

"No, I'm still trying to process the fact that I'm going to be a...mother…" she trailed off before putting her head in her hands

"It's certainly a big step, at least you have...six months to prepare yourself." Lana let out a small laugh.

"True, that reminds me that I have to make an appointment so I can find out how far along I am."

"No worries, I'll come with you so that we can get an appointment today." Lana looked at her curiously.

"How?"

"I don't usually like to wave my Spectre status around but for these moments I do. I used it a couple times in my own pregnancy" Lana smiled.

"I appreciate that Sheperd." Jane gave her a wink.

"You can call me Jane, after all, we're going to be family soon."

"Commander we're going to arrive on Thessia in thirty minutes" Joker sounded over the comm and Lana stood.  
"Well duty-" she stopped before running to the bathroom in Jane's cabin. Jane got up and went to her nightstand drawer to get the turian mouthwash.

"I got you covered!" Jane called out as she ran to the bathroom while holding up the bottle.

* * *

"Where are you girls going?" Caius asked when he saw Lana and his mother make their way to the exit of the Normandy in their civilians clothes. While Lana tried to think of an answer Jane cut in.

"I asked her to help me pick out some lingerie, I was thinking of getting a pair the same color as Garrus's eyes." Caius blinked before turning around.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that and I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth." He quickly walked away with a shake of his head, it seemed to him like Lana was hiding something the way she looked startled when he asked where they were going. He didn't think it would bother him as much as it does now.

"Normandy to Caius" Garrus teased while wave his hand in front of his face to snap him out of his thoughts. Caius blinked before turning to his father.

"Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts." Garrus hummed.

"I can tell, you look like you need a distraction so why don't you come help me with fixing the mako?" Caius's mandibles flared into a smile.

"Thanks that would be a nice distraction." Garrus hummed and once they entered the elevator he asked.

"So what has you staring off into the distance?" Caius sighed.

"Well when I saw mom and Lana heading to the exit I asked them where they were going and Lana looked so startled. Like she's hiding something from me."

"Well, it's not like we tell everything we do to our spouses. Maybe she just has a hobby that she wants to keep private?"

"Maybe, and I wouldn't care if it was any other situation but these feels different. Call it a gut feeling but I don't think she's just out buying some lingerie." Garrus perked up at that.

"Wait your mother is buying lingerie?" Caius rolled his eyes.

"Yes now, can we get back to the topic at hand before I throw up?"

"Right, sorry. Well if it's as serious as you make it sound she'll tell you eventually rather than you finding out from another source. She seems like the type of person that would rather tell you first before you find out from another person" Caius rubbed the back of his neck as the elevator doors opened and they exited to head over to the mako.

"Yeah I guess you're right, well at least I have this to focus on so you don't snap at me when I do something "wrong" in your eyes."

"Hey I just want to make sure we live through another mako ride with your mother."

"True."

The two male turians got started on working on the mako. With Garrus snapping at his son a few times whenever he did something that wasn't up to par. Caius enjoyed the distraction and the light banter he would enter with his father every time he snapped or huffed. They didn't know how much time passed until Wrex came up to them with a chuckle.

"You guys better prepare yourselves."

"For what?" Caius asked under the mako.

"Oh nothing just that someone had the quad to show up here unannounced."

"Wrex just get to the point" Garrus huffed and Wrex chuckled.

"It's Kaiden."

"What?!" Caius growled as he rolled out from under the mako. Garrus sighed.

"So he's back."

"Yep and it sounds like he's here to stay." Caius shook his head as he stood up.

"Well Wrex thanks for the warning. Gives me time to work on my poker face."

"You won't have much time for that."

"Why-" Caius could smell him as soon as he heard the elevator doors open. Once Kaiden saw them he smiled.

"Hey long time no see!" Caius resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he replied in a cool tone.

"Yes it has been awhile Spectre Alenko."

"Look how tall you've gotten Caius! How long has it been um ten years?"

"Sounds about right."

"Hey Garrus." Garrus gave him a nod.

"Kaiden."

"So where's Jane?" Caius cleared his throat.

"My mother is out with my fiance'." Kaiden raised his eyebrows.

"I'm surprised you're settling down this young."

"Well when you meet the one it's hard not to." There was a flash of pain in his eyes before he smiled again.

"So when will Jane be back?" Caius shrugged.

"When she chooses to."

"Well what brings you back to the Normandy?" Garrus asked and Kaiden shrugged.

"Well when I heard we lost the Citadel it made me realize how serious the situation was so I volunteered to help and the council approved."

"I see" Caius sighed while Kaiden turned.

"Well it was nice seeing you guys but I should start unpacking," Kaiden said before he entered the elevator, Caius rolled his eyes before turning to his father.

"Can we spar?"

"Definitely."

* * *

Caius winced as headed back to his room from the showers, this time his father won and Spirits was it long fight. The shower helped though it would help relax more by watching a movie with Lana when she got back.

Entering his room he saw his future mate sitting on the edge of the bed, he could hear how nervous she was by her subvocals and that made him frown.

"Everything okay?" Lana rubbed the back of her neck as she sighed.

"Yes, no. A little bit of both." He immediately sat down next to her and grabbed her hand.

"What's wrong?" Lana noticeably swallowed.

"I'm not sure how to tell you this but I don't want to procrastinate any longer so I'll just say it." She let out a shaky breath before continuing. "When I was shocked it caused my birth implant to malfunction and since we have been um...active I found out today that I'm...pregnant." Caius was silent since he was processing what she just said but she took it the wrong way and started keening. "I know this isn't the right time and I don't want to stress you out more so I'm sorry-" she stopped when she felt his arms wrap around her along with his rumbling purr.

"Lana you shouldn't be sorry, it's not your fault and I'm actually happy." Lana sniffed.

"You are?" Caius hummed.

"Yes and scared of course because It's one thing to take care of a toddler for a night but a newborn is a totally different story but we'll figure it out. So don't get upset it's not good for the baby." Lana laughed as she hugged him back.

"That's a relief, oh! I have a picture!" she exclaimed as she stood up to go to her nightstand and he raised his browplates.

"Aren't you too early for an ultrasound?" Lana shook her head as she took out the picture.

"No they just couldn't do it the traditional way, they had to shove a stick in there."

"Ouch." Lana laughed as she went over to him.

"No it didn't hurt just was uncomfortable, and it's right...here." She pointed to a dot in the ultrasound, smiling when Caius looked at it in awe.

"How far along are you?"

"A month, so halfway through my first trimester." Caius scanned the picture into his omni tool so that he would always have it with him.

"Now I see why mom has all those baby pictures. It's a great motivation and a quick boost." Lana hummed in agreement as she also scanned the ultrasound before placing it the drawer.

"So I heard Spectre Kaiden Alenko will be joining the crew?" Caius sighed.

"Unfortunately."

"Why's that?"

"Becuase he's always had a crush on my mother back when she was hunting Saren. He still tries to get her to go out with him despite the fact that she's married." Lana raised her browplates.

"How do you know for sure?" Caius snorted.

"I noticed how he would stare at her and ask her for "coffee" everytime my dad was not around. Oh and my favorite is him trying to get her alone in the room but I always "forgot" my toys." Lana laughed.

"What about when you were older?"

"Forgot my book. Made sure I left a book in every room in the house every time I knew he was coming over."

"Diabolical" She teased and Caius winked.

"She sure appreciated that, always looked relieved every time I came in the room and stayed until dad returned." Lana chuckled before her stomach let out a growl, Caius arched a browplate and she huffed.

"Don't give me that look, I ate out with your mother so I shouldn't be hungry now."

"Yes but you're eating for two now, I haven't eaten yet so let's get something in the mess hall. Actually, lets go out to dinner, I need a break from the military food " Lana smiled.

"That would be nice, it's a good thing the doctor gave me a list of all the things I'm not supposed to eat."

"Is it a long list?" He teased as they exited his room, Lana shivered.

"I glanced at it and it looked like there was a lot of things on there."

"Are you guys going out too?" Jane asked as she exited the main battery with Garrus.

"Yeah, I'm surprised you managed to tear him away from the console."  
"Well the thanix canon isn't going to get calibrated itself. We were heading out for dinner but if you want you can come with us and make it a double date?" Lana hummed.

"That's a great idea, never been on one before."

"Just don't make out in front of me, I want to keep my dinner down." Caius teased as they entered the elevator to go up to the CIC. Garrus snorted.

"Well I should thank you for paying dinner in advance" Caius frowned.

"What?"

"Well you need to pay us back the one thousand credits thief."

"I can just do it right now."

"It's less fun that way, I want to draw it out. You'll understand when you have your own children." Caius smirked.

"Well he or she has to be born first" Garrus arched a brow plate.

"Why does it sound like it has a deeper meaning?" Caius hummed.

"Because it does, I found out earlier that Lana is carrying another member of the Vakarian clan." Garrus purred delight as he hugged Caius and Lana.

"Congratulations! How far along are you?" Lana smiled.

"A month so five more to go." Jane smiled at her husband.

"You should see the ultrasound picture when we come back. Brings back so many memories."

"I actually scanned it into my omni tool. Here." Caius brought up his omni tool and showed the picture to Garrus who was smiling at the picture fondly.

"You're right it does, just a little dot now but once you hear the heartbeat it makes it so much real." Caius chuckled.

"Can't wait for that ultrasound, since you're now having a grandchild do I still have to pay?"

"Yep."

"Damn."


	16. What a Nice Meeting

"I heard that it's a human custom to give their children middle names so did your mom give you one?" Lana asked from the bed where she had her datapad in hand. Caius glanced at her before looking back at his terminal with a hum.

"Yeah it's David" Lana raised her browplates.  
"David? Did she come up with that or…" Caius chuckled.

"It's to honor a close friend, his name was David Anderson and he died in the Reaper war though she never gave specific details to what happened to him. Doesn't really like to talk about it."

"Ah, were you thinking about giving him or her a middle name?" Caius nodded as he turned away from the terminal to fully face her.

"Yeah, it's grandmother is a human so I want to honor some of the human traditions. I already have one in mind if it's a boy but I'm not sure for a girl. I'll leave that one to you." Lana gave him a curious look.

"So what's the middle name?" Caius shrugged.

"Sorry not telling you." Lana huffed.

"Why not? I'm the mother for Spirits sake!" He chuckled.

"I know and I appreciate all the trouble you're going through but I want it to be a surprise."

"It better not be stupid Caius David Vakarian."

"Trust me it's not, it will be perfect and you're going to use my full name every time I'm in trouble aren't you?"

"Yep."

"Caius the council wants to meet with us" Jane sighed over the comm and he rubbed the back of his neck.  
"Alright I'll be in the war room in a minute." He shook his head as he stood up and Lana stretched.

"Duty calls?"

"Yep the council wants to meet with me and my mother. Can you just hear how excited I am?" Caius drawled out and Lana laughed as she stood up from the bed with a yawn.  
"Yeah I can just hear the jitters. I need to get some work done too."

"You know if you're tired you should take a nap. I read that fatigue is a symptom." Lana rolled her eyes with a smile.

"How sweet of you but no, I can't go with you on missions anymore as much as I would like to so I want to work hard for the ship at least." Caius sighed as he walked out of their room with her.

"Alright just don't push yourself."

"Noted" she hummed as she headed towards the main battery. Caius watched her go with a shake of his head before entering the elevator, Kaiden rushed in right just as he was about to close the doors.

"Phew glad I caught that in time! Wouldn't want the council to moan about me being late." Caius raised his browplates.

"They invited you too?" he asked while pressing the button to go up while Kaiden chuckled.

"Of course! They want all three of their Spectres there."

"So it would seem" Caius sighed softly, why did it seem to him that the elevator was going unreasonably slow.

"So I heard that you're going to be a father. Congrats on you and Lana."

"Thank you."

"Thought of any names?"

"Too early for that" Caius nearly sighed in relief when the elevator doors opened. He quickly headed to the war room with Kaiden right behind him. The councilors and his mother were already there with Tevos speaking up.

"We would like to discuss the next step since all the refugees have disembarked on Thessia."

"How many did we rescue by the way?" Kaiden asked and Jane glanced at her datapad.

"More than three million. The two million left are either dead or MIA, the majority being the latter."

"That's it?" Caius frowned at Kaiden.

"What do you mean that's it? I think that's a damn good number considering the time and situation we were in."

"We need to go back and rescue them!" Jane sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Kaiden you're letting your emotions get the best of you again. We can't go back to rescue them when the Citadel fleet is in no condition to do so."

"We can't make the Citadel a battle zone when there is still that many people left!" Caius shook his head.

"We're not going back to rescue them Kaiden."

"But-" Caius growled.

"We. Are. Not. Going. Back. To. Rescue. Them. We don't know where they are and the station is too big to be looking around while those fanatics are shooting at us. Their best chance is us getting back control over the station. We can't do that by losing half the fleet over a rescue mission." Kaiden crossed his arms.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"When I visited Tuchunka I noticed that they still had a lot of dead Reapers around the planet. We can use that tech to upgrade our ships so we have a better chance when we return to the Citadel to regain control." Sparatus arched a brow.

"That could take months, plenty of time for Palavi to inflict loads amount of damage."

"Unless we slow them down, the Normandy is known to be discreet. We can head to their bases and find out not only their next moves but blow up their camps" Jane spoke up and Sparatus hummed.

"That could work…"

"We have the resources to add our own touch of technology to the mix. Not to mention the engineers we can add in to advance the process" Tevos commented.

"We can send some turian scouts to locate any of the bases, with any luck it could take a couple of weeks;" Sparatus said as Tevos nodded.

"Then it's decided, as usual, we expect full reports on your progress when you leave.''

"Very well" Caius hummed before leaving the war room with Kaiden and his mother. Kaiden stomped off while Jane sighed.

"Where's Lana"

"In the main battery. Dad?"

"In the main battery" they both looked at each other with a smirk.

"Thinking what I'm thinking?"Caius hummed and Jane chuckled as she entered the elevator with her son.

"Bug the hell out of our loved ones? Hell yeah." They both snickered as the elevator descended, once it opened they strolled over to the main battery with the doors opening in a smooth swoosh. Garrus and Lana were both at the console, brows furrowed as their fingers flew over the console. Caius walked up to Lana and hugged her from behind while purring in her ear.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine;" she said in a curt tone, fingers still continuing to type away.

"Whatcha doing?"

"Calibrations."

"On what?" Lana let out an annoyed sigh.

"What's your motive here Caius?" Caius held his mandibles tight against his face to keep himself from bursting out laughing.

"Nothing just checking on my mate to be."

"Uh huh." Caius glimpsed at his parents and saw Jane kissing Garrus's scarred mandible.

"Your scar looks like it faded more."

"Yeah I'll go out and get new ones;" he said distractedly and Jane smirked as she rubbed his arm.

"I bought a new nightdress, it's in red."

"Yeah can it wait for a bit, I'm in the middle of some calibrations" Jane rolled her eyes and glanced at Caius. They gave each other a wink before Caius moved to stand next to Lana. Purposely shuffling close to her and nearly laughing when Lana clicked in annoyance.

"What is it, Caius?"

"Nothing I just want to be close to you that's all. Is it wrong to show my love?" He hummed innocently and Lana sighed.

"Show your love from all the way over those crates over there," Caius smirked as Garrus let out a frustrated sigh.

"Jane don't you have reports or something to do so you're not staying up late with them."

"Nope nada. " Caius then started nuzzling Lana's neck.

"You know you really look beautiful today. It must be that motherhood glow."  
"That's it you guys have to leave." Lana huffed as she turned around along with Garrus. Both pushing them out of the main battery. Jane and Caius didn't put up much of a fight since they were too busy laughing. Once they were out Garrus locked the door while Jane wiped the tears away.

"We should work too, let's go up to my cabin so we can discuss the plan more thoroughly. Caius hummed with a nod as he entered the elevator with her. Once the doors closed they both turned off their translators, after all Caius needed to keep up with his english.

"I don't know how you did it mom." He sighed and Jane arched an eyebrow.

"Did what?"

"The pressure with the Reaper threat, I'm surprised you didn't loose your sanity.' She chuckled.

"Believe me there was plenty of times I was on the brink of a mental breakdown but your father helped me get through it. I was thirty-one when I started with my hunt for Saren but you're only twenty-three dealing with a galaxy threat." Caius hummed.

"Very stressful indeed, and with losing the Citadel…" he shook his head, with a sympathetic smile she rubbed his back as the elevator doors opened.

"We have a plan to get it back that the council actually approves of." They both chuckled as they entered the cabin. Caius plopped down on the couch while Jane poured two glasses of wine.

"Now we'll have to find a replacement for Lana with the ground missions."

"Well, we still have your father," Jane commented as she handed him a glass of wine.

"Yeah but if we are going to have any chance at finding out information we're going to need a second tech geek...wait! What about auntie Tali?"

"Tali? Actually, that could work...I spoke to her a couple months ago and she told me that the twins were going on their pilgrimage, she might be free now for some action." Caius raised his browplates.

"Rina and Sela are already on their pilgrimage? Haven't seen the girls in a long time...wonder if they can join too."

"Let's see if they'll be willing to tolerate you" she teased and they both turned on their translators before she opened up her omni tool. Moments later Tali's face appeared on the screen.

"Shepard! And is that Caius I see over there too?" Caius waved with a wink.

"Yep it's your favorite nephew in the whole galaxy."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" Jane rolled her eyes while Tali laughed.

"So much like Garrus it's scary. How do you deal with it Shepard?" Jane let out a wistful sigh.

"I usually just ignore both of them everytime they get into a banter of who's better."

"You do realize I'm right here." Caius huffed while Jane just ignored him.

"Anyway I was wondering if you wanted to rejoin the Normandy crew and since the girls are out on the pilgrimage maybe they can join too?" Tali clapped her hands.

"Love too! I've been bored out of my mind here and I heard about the Citadel though I'm not surprised you're involved in another galaxy threat. The girls I would have to ask them but I'm pretty sure they will come." Caius smiled.

"Great! So when can you come? We're at Thessia and we'll be here for two weeks."

"That works out perfectly! I can be there in a couple weeks and pick up the girls along the way if they decide to come."

"Awesome! Ah just like old times huh?" Jane said and Tali laughed.

"Yes I'm excited! I'll message the girls right now and let you know their response. Bye Shepard bye Caius."

"Bye" Jane and Caius said at the same time before she turned off the omni tool. Caius took a sip of his wine before commenting.

"It's nice that I'm meeting the other members of our crazy family after so many years." Jane nodded in agreement.

"Yeah once you went to boot camp you didn't have time to see them. Hell we weren't able to see you much and when we did it wasn't for long." Jane said before taking a sip, Caius hummed.

"I missed you guys and everyone else, then after my training was done I just threw myself into handling whatever the council threw at me. A way for me to handle Kanus's death and not seeing you guys even though there were times I wished I had visited you." Jane chuckled softly before putting down her wine glass to hug his head to her chest.

"Even though we have to deal with all this crap I'm glad we get to spend all this time together with this mission. I saw you fall in love and now have a baby on the way, truly the most excitement I've had on the Normandy." Caius laughed softly.

"I feel so honored, can I get up now so I can drink this expensive wine?"

"Nope I want a few more minutes with my baby."

"I'm twenty-three mom."

"You could be fifty years old for all I care and you'll still be my miracle baby." The doors to the cabin opened as Garrus and Lana strolled in. Jane chose that moment to start kissing his forehead and Caius clicked in annoyance.

"Mom!" When he heard Lana giggle he made a huge effort to twist his head out of her hold while trying not to spill his wine. Jane placed one more loud kiss on his fringe before letting him go with a snicker and looked at Lana.

"Would you like some water or the dextro version of ginger ale?" Lana chuckled as she sat down next to Caius.

"The ginger ale please and thank you."

"Finally finished with your calibrations?" Caius mocked and Lana smacked his arm before Jane handed her a glass of the dextro ginger ale.

"Yes and we probably would've finished sooner if it weren't for you two" Garrus commented while Jane and Caius shrugged innocently.

"We were bored after the meeting so what better way to spend our free time than to bother you guys." Caius hummed and Lana rolled her eyes.

"We were pretty much done but thanks to you I messed up on a formula" she huffed before taking a long sip of her dextro ginger ale.

"So what was the council meeting about?" Garrus asked as he sat down next to wife after he had poured himself some dextro wine.

"Well they wanted a plan for the next step, Caius came up with the idea that we should use Reaper tech from Tuchanka to upgrade the ships in the Citadel fleet. While they're upgrading we'll go out and slow Palavi as much as we can, they agreed so now we're waiting for scouts to report back on their findings with possible bases to infiltrate which could take a couple weeks." Jane replied and Garrus hummed.

"I like the plan but have you asked Wrex yet?" Jane shook her head.

"No I'm not going to ask him. Caius is." Caius arched a browplate.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the favorite. If you could ask him to play as a varren to ride on when you were six you can ask him anything."

"Fine" Jane chuckled before she sent a message to Wrex on her omni tool. A few minutes later the krogan strolled in with a grunt.

"What is this some kind of party?" Caius placed his wine glass down before standing up.

"Kind of which of course you can join. Anyway, Uncle Wrex I have a huge favor to ask you." He hummed while strolling over to him.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Caius waved him off.

"Nonsense! It's not bad at all. Now in order for the fleet to have any chance of taking over the Citadel we need to upgrade them with Reaper tech and the easiest source out there is…"

"Tuchanka and let me guess you want me to give the council permission to do so." Caius patted him on the shoulder.

"Exactly! So what do you say?" Wrex snorted.

"No."

"Aw why not?"

"Look I personally wouldn't mind but the other clans are going to give me hell over this and I'm not in the mood to be dealing with those pyjaks."

"This will help prove to the council that your species is ready for a seat among the council."

"True…"

"If you explain that to them they shouldn't give you much trouble since that's what they want in the first place. Plus this will make my day so please my favorite uncle in the galaxy."

"I don't know pyjak…"

"Please!" Caius pouted and Wrex cleared his throat.

"Um Shepard he's giving me the look." Jane let out a dramatic sigh.

"Sorry can't help you there."

"But-"

"Just accept your fate now" Garrus finished before taking a sip and Wrex sighed in defeat.

"Alright I'll give them permission now please stop looking at me like that." Caius laughed and clapped him on the back.

"Thank you! How about I get you a drink?"

"You wouldn't happen to have Ryncol would you?"

"Actually yes, special ordered it just for you" Jane smiled and Wrex let out a relieved sigh.

"You're the best Shepard."

"I know."


	17. Welcome Back Tali'zorah

Caius rubbed his shoulder as he entered the Normandy with Lana who looked at him with concern.

"Did I bite you that hard?" Lana asked worriedly and Caius shook his head before responding.

"No I just bumped my shoulder in the doorway when I walked in, I'm still not fully awake yet." Lana yawned.

"Me neither, though I appreciate that you did everything I asked with the candles and flowers. The bath was a nice touch too." Lana commented and Caius gave her wink.

"I can be romantic when I want to, I didn't bite you too hard did I?" Caius asked and Lana shook her head with a reassuring smile.  
"Nope it's a healthy sore, I might have to skip the calibrations today. Don't want to mess them up and have to start over again." Lana said with a hum.

"So you guys finally did it huh?" Wrex said with a snicker and Jane looked up from her datapad towards the couple.

"Did what?" Jane asked curiously.

"Mated, their scents are different;" Garrus said with a hum and Jane squealed before running over to them to give them a hug.

"Congratulations! Now I officially have a daughter-in-law!" Jane said excitedly and Lana chuckled as she hugged her back.

"Thank you;" Lana said and Caius smiled.

"Sorry we came in late we were bidding Kania goodbye," Caius said and Garrus arched a browplate.

"Oh? So it wasn't because you were spending the morning lounging in bed?" Garrus said with a hum.

"That too, why else would I be in such a great mood?" Caius said with a wink and Lana gasped before smacking his arm, her sub vocals humming in embarrassment while everyone else snickered. "Anyway Auntie Tali and the twins should be here soon right?" Caius asked and Jane nodded.

"Yep, finally after two weeks I get to see my bestie. Good times indeed." Jane responded with a wistful sigh and Caius chuckled.

"Good and I'll be down in the shuttle bay making sure everything is accounted for, let me know when they've come," Caius said then turned to head to the elevator to head down to the shuttle bay. He debated drinking another cup of coffee since the one he had at the hotel wasn't waking him up enough. Luckily he managed to get some actual coffee beans instead of that instant coffee crap.

* * *

"Tali!" Jane squealed in excitement as she went over to hug her friend.

"Shepard!" Tali exclaimed and returned the hug with equal enthusiasm. The twins were behind their mother and Jane gave them both a hug.

"I haven't seen you since you guys were twelve. Nice haircut by the way Rina." Jane said with a broad smile. Rina's black hair had been cut to a bob with a side bang while Sela's hair was long and straight. The twins had suits like their mother just didn't have the mask that their species once wore. Rina's suit was red and it reminded her of an asari dress from the Citadel. It had a large hole cut in around her navel and two large holes cut in on her hips, one on each side. Sela suit was a light blue and being the more subtle of the two just had small holes on the side of her thighs cut in the suit along with a few thin slits on each side of her waist.

"Thanks! I had it done recently, easier for people to tell us apart" Rina said with a chuckle as she hugged Jane.

"It's nice that we get to be on missions with you auntie Jane;" Sela said with a smile as she hugged Jane.

"Hey Tali and hello to you girls" Garrus greeted with a hum as he gave Tali a hug before giving the twins hugs.

"Hey Garrus, by the way where's Caius?" Tali asked.

"He's down in the shuttle bay checking off our supplies. " Garrus responded and the twins giggled.

"Perfect chance to get him!" Rina said with a smirk as she and her sister ran to the elevator.

"Oh I gotta see this" Garrus laughed as he rushed to the elevator with Jane and Tali behind him. The elevator stopped at the crew deck, the doors opening to Lana walking in.

"Oh perfecting timing. Lana this is Tali and her daughters, Rina and Sela. Tali, girls, this is Lana. Caius's mate and mother of my unborn grandchild." Jane introduced them to each other and Tali smiled.  
"Welcome to the crazy family then" Tali chuckled as she hugged Lana who was surprised at first since they had just met but returned the warm gesture.

"Thank you it's nice to finally meet you;" Lana said softly.

"You managed to tame him? Definitely deserve a reward for that." Rina said with a snicker as she and Sela gave her a hug at the same time. The doors then opened and the twins snuck out of the elevator, Lana arched a brow.

"What are they…" Lana trailed off.

"They're going to scare him, pretty much the only people in the galaxy that can scare a turian. Got me a few times." Garrus responded with a hum as he walked out of the elevator quietly with everyone else. They got close enough to see Caius without him noticing them.

"That's fine as long as it's here on time," Caius said to the dock worker before typing on his datapad. He kept his eyes on the datapad as he headed over to a couple crates.

"Boo!" the twins yelled as Rina jumped out in front of him while Sela jumped out behind him. Caius jumped as he let out a startled trill, nearly dropping the datapad in his hand. The twins started laughing along with everyone else.

"You girls nearly gave me a heart attack!" Caius said with a huff as he leaned against a crate trying to calm down his frantic heart. The twins giggled as they both hugged Caius.

"We couldn't resist." The twins said with a hum and Caius rolled his eyes with a small smile before hugging them back.

"Hello my favorite nephew" Tali greeted with a chuckle as she walked over to him.

"Auntie Tali!" Caius chirped as he moved away from the girls to hug his aunt. She hugged him back eagerly with a smile.

"So you're a father now hm?" Tali asked with a smirk and Caius chuckled.

"Yeah, a few more months and it will be official. I'm excited but I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous."

"Of course, it's a big step papa Caius" Rina teased as she punched his arm playfully. Caius started ruffling her hair and Rina growled as she swatted his hands away.

"I just washed my hair today!" Rina said with a huff.

"Sorry there was something in your hair, I'm trying to be helpful;" He said innocently while Rina tried to finger comb it back into place grumbling.

"Children!" Jane drawled and Caius snickered as Tali rolled her eyes.

"It's almost lunch time so why don't we go grab something to eat," Tali suggested.

"Maybe later, I want to make sure we have all our supplies first," Caius responded with a sigh.

"I don't want you snapping at the dock workers because you missed your meal" Jane teased and Caius winked.

"I have a granola bar to hold me off, it's right-" he trailed before frowning as he patted his pockets, he heard Sela giggle behind him and he turned to see her hold up the bar.

"Thief!" Caius exclaimed and Sela yelped when he started to chase her around the shuttle bay. He took a different route by going around some crates and easily jumping over one so she crashed right into his waiting arm.

"Rina help!"

"Don't do the double team cra-" he was cut off when Rina jumped up behind him and had one arm around his neck while she used her free hand to grab his fringe.

"Ow! I just want my granola woman!"

"Let her go!" Rina yelled then kicked his spur, he cursed the weak point as he stumbled and landed on his side so he wouldn't hurt the girls. The twins yelped on the way down, once they had hit the ground with a thud all three went into a fit of laughter.

"Get off my leg fat ass!" Rina exclaimed as she pushed against his back, still laughing Caius rolled so he was laying on his belly to free her leg. The twins, still laughing, were hugging their bellies which hurt from their laughter. Tali and Jane shook their heads with a chuckle at seeing their children act like fools. Caius snatched the bar from the floor before he sat up, trying to calm the giggles.

"And we wondered if they would get along" Jane mused as the twins sat up while wiping their eyes, still giggling.

"Let's get settled in girls, I want to see how that sweet engine core is holding up after all this time," Tali said with a wistful sigh.

"Boring!" Rina said with a snort and Sela frowned at her sister.

"It's not boring! I've been wanting to see it for so long!" she exclaimed while Rina rolled her eyes as she got up.

"Well, I guess one of us had to take after mom, see you at lunch?" Rina directed her question at Caius and he shrugged before responding.

"Not sure, depends on how fast the dock workers bring everything in." Rina nodded as she nudged his leg with her foot.

"Well you better be there or we'll drag your bony ass to the mess hall," Rina said with a smirk causing Caius to roll his eyes as he stood up.

"See you at lunch then;" he said with a hum and the twins chuckled before making their way to the elevator. Everyone else bidded their farewells as they also went back to the elevators to either settle in or work. Caius stretched before picking up his datapad where had left it before resuming the tedious task of checking off supplies.

* * *

A couple hours later the Normandy had taken off and after getting settled in with her daughters at the engineering deck they decided to get some lunch in the mess hall. Upon entering the hall they saw Lana sitting at the table looking at her datapad.

"Hey Lana!" The twins greeted in unison as they went over to her, Lana looked up with a smile.

"Hey, settling in alright?" Lana asked and Sela nodded her head enthusiastically while Rina sighed with a shake of her head.

"I didn't want to be in the engineering deck but it was two against one so I had to relent;" Rina said with a huff while Tali rolled her eyes as she came up to them.

"Oh Rina it's not that bad;" Tali said and Rina sniffed.

"I have to hear you guys talk about the drive core all the time now, it's going to make my ears bleed!" Rina exclaimed and Tali shook her head.

"You got that from Shepard didn't you? You always were the dramatic one" Tali said causing Rina to narrow her eyes at her mother.

"Actually it was from Caius from when we were six and he was nine, never could forget that human saying but I'm just going to chose to ignore that comment about me being dramatic which is not true," Rina said with a huff and Tali rolled her eyes again before looking at Lana.

"Don't let this scare you about your own child, the twins are just a special case." Rina gasped in outrage while Sela jaw dropped.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Sela exclaimed and Tali waved off her daughters.

"See? Special case. Anyway did you already eat lunch or…?" Tali asked and Lana chuckled softly before finishing with a small sigh.

"Well I was starving when I came in but then I started to feel nauseous and the thought of eating something now just has my stomach turning so I was looking for foods on my datapad that wouldn't make me hurl."

"Oh! I have just the thing!" Tali exclaimed as she patted Lana's shoulder before going to the kitchen.

"Oh you don't have to go through the trouble of-" Lana started but Tali cut her off.

"It's no trouble at all, I'm so happy for you and Caius. Since he's my um...what did humans call it...godson it's the least I can do."

"Thank you Tali;" Lana said with a smile before the twins sat down on each side of her. Rina nudged her arm.

"So have you thought of any names?" Rina asked with a smirk and Lana chuckled.

"No we want to wait until we find out the gender before going back and forth over a name," Lana said with a turian smile before the elevator doors opened. Caius exited the elevator and Rina opened up her omni tool.

"Ten minutes late but we were late ourselves so I'll let it slide;" Rina said with a tsk and Caius rolled his eyes as he headed over to them.

"Well, I was up on the CIC deck with mom going over our first move," Caius said before touching foreheads with Lana. "How are you feeling?" He asked Lana and she gave him a reassuring smile "I'm alright just a little nauseous, Tali is making me something to help with that." Lana responded and Caius looked towards the kitchen.

"Ah no wonder it smells good;" Caius said with a hum as he went into the kitchen and reached out to take a little piece of fruit only for Tali to smack his hand away.

"Not for you mister, now out!" Tali said with a snort as she shooed him away.

"Aww, I just want some of that fruit," Caius said with a pout.

"Are you the one holding a baby in your belly for six months?" Tali asked and Caius blinked before responding.

"Well no…"

"Then you don't get any." Tali scolded and Caius sat across his mate and the girls with a sigh.

"Now I have to eat regular bland military food;" Caius said with a huff and Lana looked at him with an arched brow.

"Oh so would you like to switch places? Throwing up every morning, every weird smell that makes you want to hurl, being tired all the time, crying at every little thing. Then having your belly get stretched out-" Lana listed off before Caius hastily interrupted her.

"Ah no that's okay, happy eating the military food." The elevator doors opened and Jane came in with her hands behind her back.  
"Sorry I'm late, wanted to get something from my cabin." Jane said as she walked over to Lana before continuing "I wanted to give you something, you don't have to use it but I thought it would be nice just in case." Jane pulled out two items from behind her back. In one hand she was holding a newborn turian onesie that was the same color as Caius's clan markings and in the other hand was a small galaxy themed blanket.

"These were Caius's from when he was a baby and I already washed them recently so they're ready for a newborn," Jane said with a smile as Lana took the items.

"Thank you this is so sweet...all of you are being so n-nice" Lana said as her voice cracked at the end before she started keening. Jane chuckled softly as she hugged Lana and Caius stood up.

"Aw mom you made her cry!" He said in a slightly panicked tone.

"Ah don't worry this is normal in a pregnancy when you piss her off she'll bounce right back;" Garrus said with a hum as he exited the main battery.

"Really?" Caius said, humming in thought before looking at Lana.

"Um Lana I'm thinking about ripping you stupid rug with my talons that I haven't trimmed yet!" He called out and in the next moment a cup sailed through the air and hit him right in the middle of his forehead so fast that he didn't have time to duck.

"Don't you dare touch my rug!" Lana snarled, Caius blinked as he rubbed his forehead.

"Is she going to switch that fast during the next four months?" Caius asked his father quietly.

"Yep" Garrus responded with a soft sigh.

"Great" Caius said with a sigh and Garrus patted him on the back before commenting.

"Welcome to pre-fatherhood."


	18. First Base

Caius set up the hologram in the war room so that it was showing the first Palavi base that they were going to hit.

"As you know our main goal is to blow up this lovely building but it wouldn't hurt to look around for any information they have." Caius said before Jane continued.

"That's why we're having three teams, two to scout ahead and clear out the building along with looking for any info that will be useful. The third being the one that takes in the bomb and take on whatever reinforcements that arrive if there is any. Team one will be Caius, Trey, and Sela. Team two will be Wrex, Tali, and Rina. That leaves me, Garrus, Kaiden, and Babar to arm the bomb."

"We'll be arriving there in an hour and I assume everyone is okay with the plan yes?" Caius said and everyone murmured in agreement.

"Good, we'll meet in the shuttle in an hour then. Dismissed" Jane said before everyone left the war room. Caius stretched before he headed to the elevator to go to the crew deck.

Upon arriving the Crew Deck floor he went to his room to find all his guns laid out on the bed. With Lana also on the bed with his visor in her hand, her brow plates furrowed in concentration.

"Um I thought you were going to take a nap?" Caius asked with amusement in his tone and Lana glanced up at him.

"Well I was but knowing you were heading off to a mission while I'm stuck here had me anxious so I decided to calibrate all your guns. It gives me a sense of peace and something to do knowing that I can at least help to make sure that you're safe." Lana said as Caius walked over to her with a soft chuckle.

"Aw isn't that sweet" he teased as he sat next to her on the bed and Lana rolled her eyes.

"Well, I want to make sure that my child will have a father when he or she is born."

"That's it? Not because you love me?" Caius drawled and Lana made a show of thinking it over.

"Hmm, I guess that too. Not like I have much of a choice now anyway" Lana said with a wistful sigh and Caius clutched his chest.

"You wound me, if you listen carefully you can hear my heart breaking;" Caius said with a dramatic cough as he flopped back on the bed with his blue tongue sticking out. Lana poked him before she shrugged.

"Aw well if he's dead now I guess that means I can chase Trey. He's pretty cute." Lana said nonchalantly and Caius immediately shot up from the bed.

"What?!" He growled and Lana had a smug expression.

"Hehe I knew that would get you up."

* * *

I spy with my little eye something...purple" Rina said and Caius looked outside the shuttle window.

"Hmm is it that purple planet?" Caius asked and Rina nodded before Sela looked out.

"I spy with my little eye-" Sela started but she was interrupted by a loud sigh from Tali.

"Keelah do you have to play that game now?" Tali asked with a roll of her eyes.

"What? We're bored" Caius said with a shrug and Jane rubbed her face.

"It brings back memories when we went on those trips. Bad ones." Jane sighed and Sela frowned.

"From what I remember those trips were pretty fun" Sela said and Jane shook her head.

"For you because you girls were trying to ride a dog. While Caius was trying to ride a sheep." Jane drawled and Caius shrugged.

"Well it was perfect for my size at the time, it was more exciting than just petting them," Caius said with a hum.

"The hell is a dog and a sheep?" Wrex asked.

"A dog is a four legged animal that humans adopt as pets. A sheep is also four legged but with hooves and is super fluffy. Humans shave them for...what was again Shepard?" Tali asked and Jane continued with a soft chuckle.

"Wool, we use that for clothes."

"You visited Earth Tali?" Kaidan asked and Tali nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah it was so cool! So many different places and biomes! Some cold some hot! I would like to visit it again some day" Tali said with a wistful sigh before everyone felt the shuttle land.

"We're here ladies" Barbar announced from the pilot seat, Caius checked his sniper again before hopping out of the shuttle with everyone else.

"Stay safe sister," Rina said with a smile at Sela who easily returned with one of her own.

"Keep her safe Caius" Tali said softly and Caius gave her a wink as he put his arm over Sela's shoulder.

"Of course, I need to annoy her too after all" Caius said with a wistful sigh as he squeezed her to him even though she was trying to squirm out of his hold.

"Get off! You're going to cut off my oxygen at this rate!" Sela exclaimed in annoyance and Caius squeezed her one more time before letting her go with a snicker.

"We'll go ahead now and you can follow after about ten minutes. Sound good?" Caius asked and Wrex nodded.

"Yep, be careful out there pyjaks." He grunted and Caius gave him a wink before he started heading off in the direction of the base with Trey and Sela. They had to go through some type of jungle and boy was it hot and humid. Caius personally didn't mind it since turians were at home with heat because of their homeworld Palaven which was known to have high temperatures. While the two turians were at ease with the heat Caius noticed Sela fanning herself from time to time along with her hair getting fuzzy.

"Looks like your hair can't handle the heat either" Caius teased and Sela groaned before putting her hood up while Trey stared at her in fascination.

"I've never seen hair...do that…" Trey said in awe and Sela sighed.

"It's the humidity, my hair is not naturally straight so it curls up when it's humid," Sela grumbled.

"C-can I touch it?" Trey blurted out, Sela looked surprised but soon pulled down her hood. Giving him a silent permission. Trey went over to her and carefully reached out to one of the small curls. Rubbing it between his fingers.

"It's so soft…" He said quietly and Sela cheeks had a red tint to them causing Caius to whistle.

"Is it getting hot here or is it just me? And I don't think it's the planets fault anymore." Trey jumped away from Sela in embarrassment as her face turned even redder.

"S-sorry um w-we should get back to the mission" He quickly stuttered before moving on ahead. Caius watched him go before he started waggling his browplates at Sela who slapped his shoulder.

"Not a word!" Sela said with a little growl as she put her hood back up before following Trey. Ignoring Caius's snickering throughout their little journey.

It wasn't long before they saw a turian sentry, Caius stopped Trey and Sela before looking through the scope of his sniper.

"Sentry, we must be close. One second" Caius said with hum aimed for the sentry's head before pulling the trigger. The sentry collapsing to the ground a moment later. A static sounded over the comm before Wrex's booming voice came through.

"Pyjak was that you!" Caius winced as he rubbed his ear.

"Yes it was and why do you have to be so loud all the damn time? You nearly made my ears bleed" Caius grumbled.

"Ohsorry,." thekrogan grunted apologetically. Caius shook his head before he moved on with Trey and Sela. He soon heard a shot sounding off in the distance and before he could ask Wrex's voice came through the comm again.

"That was Rina, she's pretty good with the sniper."

"Not as good as me" Caius commented with a snort.

"Watch it Vakarian" Rina warned with a huff. Choosing to ignore her Caius looked through his scope again.

"I can see the base from here not too many guards" Caius reported with a hum and Rina soon replied.

"Same here, I personally want to go in guns blazing what about you guys?" Wrex barked out a laughter.

"Guns blazing! You popped out a good one Tali" Wrex said with a chuckle and Caius could hear Tali sigh.

"If you meant that as a compliment you failed miserably, but since there's not many we might as well," Tali said with a hum and Caius shrugged before glancing at Trey and Sela.

"I'm in, what about you guys?" Caius asked and they both nodded.

"I can't wait to try out my drone!" Sela said excitedly.

"Nerd" Caius and Rina called out in unison and Sela huffed.

"Leave your sister alone children" Tali scolded and Caius chuckled before he went ahead to close in on the base.

"I hope you guys are ready" Caius said with a hum as he took cover behind a rock and set up his sniper. Aiming for a guard's head he was about to pull the trigger until he heard a shot ring out before the guard he was aiming at collapsed.

"Rina I know it was you! That was my kill!" Caius growled as a firefight erupted around him.

"Pick up the pace then!" Rina taunted as she fired at another guard. Caius huffed before he quickly aimed to take out another guard.

Through the whole firefight, Caius and Rina were in their own kill count competition. Throwing jabs and taunting each other though when the firefight was over it ended in a tie.

"That last one was mine!" Rina grumbled and Caius snorted as he switched his sniper to his assault rifle.

"Too slow on the trigger little lady" Caius said with a hum as Tali and Sela worked on getting the door open. Within moments he heard a smooth swish as the door opened. Caius and Wrex went inside first, unexpectedly encountering two heavy mechs targeting their sights at them.

"Get down!" Caius exclaimed, all six of them dropping down to the ground in time before rockets whizzed by over their heads.

"You guys better start finding cover now. I can only hold this for so long" Trey grunted with effort. He had created a large enough shield that not only gave them enough of a perimeter to move around but he was the reason they weren't getting mutilated but the bullets targeting them. They quickly moved to find cover, taking advantage of the shield to openly shoot at the heavy mechs. Once the shield dissipated Caius switched to his sniper to shoot at the weak points of the heavy mechs.

"Hey biotic pyjak! Get over here and cover me!" Wrex shouted over the reign of bullets. Trey moved between covers so he was next to Wrex before putting up a shield. Wrex hauled up a rocket launcher before firing at one of the mechs. Everyone ducked as the mech exploded, taking out the second one in the process as debris flew everywhere. Caius peaked out of the crate he chose as his cover before standing up.

"Wrex where did you get a rocket launcher?" Caius asked and Wrex gestured to the silver case.

"Found it" Wrex simply replied and Sela gasped.

"Trey you're bleeding!" Trey frowned as he brushed his nose with a finger. Seeing blue he tilted his head up, using a hand to cover his nose.

"No it's alright, I'm not used to using my biotics to this extent but if every mission is this action packed I'll adjust in no time."

"You sure?" Caius asked with concern and Trey nodded as he put his head back down once his nose stopped bleeding. Caius then heard his mother through the comm.

"Caius did you guys make it to the base yet?"

"Yeah, we cleared out the front door guards so now we're going to clear out the rest of the building." He replied.

"Good" Jane said in a clipped tone before the comm cut out, Tali frowned.

"She sounds a bit...annoyed" Tali commented and Caius stretched.

"Well the important thing is that I got a warning and I didn't cause it" Caius hummed in response.

"Try not to piss her off more" Rina suggested with a sigh and Caius shook his head.

"For once I don't want to, I've had enough things thrown at me from Lana. At least she's made me practice when to keep my mouth shut" Caius said in a grim tone at the memories.

"Is it true that she threw a pan at you in the mess hall?" Sela asked and Caius winced as he subconsciously rubbed his chest where the pan had hit him.

"Yes, for a petite turian she throws hard" Caius grumbled in response.

"Damn I can't believe I missed that" Rina said with a pout and Tali rolled her eyes.

"We should get moving, we don't want to make her more mad" Tali suggested and everyone hummed in agreement.

"Well there's two doors so I'll take the left and Wrex you can take the right" Caius said and Wrex nodded before he went to the right door with Tali and Rina. Caius went to the left door and they were met with a long empty hallway. Caius immediately tensed up and glanced at Sela and Trey.

"Stay on your guard" He warned them before going forward cautiously. Halfway down the hallway, the door at the end of it opened and they were met with a group of Palavi soldiers. They immediately began to fire and Trey put up a shield just in time as Caius fired back.

"Trey how long can you-" Caius was cut off when the familiar violet pulses of a shock wave came charging down at the soldiers. Throwing them against the ceiling and walls with such force that they were limp when they came back down with hard thuds.  
"Well that took care of them" Sela commented as Trey began munching on a bar.

"Just so you know I'm the first one to the mess hall when we're done with this" Trey said in between mouth bites. Caius held his hands up in surrender.

"Go ahead, I think you more than deserved it;" Caius said with a hum before continuing down the hallway. Not bothering the check the bodies since it was more than clear that they were dead if the amount of blue from their heads was any indication. They entered a large room that looked like a tech lab.

"No Palavi here but this must have some useful information" Caius commented as he picked up a datapad to read it.

"This is definitely Reaper technology, there are devices here that I've never seen before," Sela said with a frown.

"Well it seems like here they are developing a new heavy mech, though it's in the testing stage" Caius informed as he scrolled down on the data pad.

"May I?" Sela asked as she went over to Caius and he handed her the datapad before looking around some more.

"Well it's a good thing we're blowing this place up because this is one badass mech" Sela commented.

"Yeah that's good but um...where is it?" Trey asked and Caius shrugged.

"Could be in a testing room or something, wait would the blueprints be in here?" Caius asked Sela and she nodded.  
"They should be, I could hack into their terminals since they're usually there" She responded as she moved to type away at one of the terminals.

"Good, we could send that to the engineers and hopefully they won't have to run too many tests so it's ready for killing as soon as possible." Caius hummed and Sela rolled her eyes but didn't comment, within a few moments her omni tool lit up.

"Got it" Sela said as she closed her omni tool.

"Nice, well since there's nothing left here we can check on Wrex and see…" Caius trailed off when he heard the clunk of metal behind him. They all turned to see the same heavy mech they saw on the blueprints standing in front of them. Only it had individual red targets aimed at each of them.

"Ah shit…" Caius muttered before all three scrambled for what little cover a lab could provide. Caius flipped a table to crouch behind it just as the mech unleashed a series of bullets in his direction. The mech then decided to use a flamethrower and Caius could practically feel the heat over his head.

"I'm going to overload it though we need to hold it til I can do it again!" Sela called out just before the mech's shields went down and Caius used his sniper to shoot armor- piercing ammo at the mech. Trey used his biotics to protect them when the bullets got too close and to deal some damage at the mech. The mech then switched to missiles and launched one near Caius, causing the table to fly back against him and temporarily trap him underneath at the worst time. He groaned in pain as he moved to push the table off but he could hear the mech coming closer as he used all of his strength to slowly push the heavy table off.

"Sela that overload would be extremely helpful right now!" Caius called out when he saw the mech switch his missiles to the flamethrower. Just as he pushed the table off of him the mech exploded from the overload, the blast slamming him into a wall. His head pounded in pain to the point it felt like there was an ax lodged in the back of his head. Sela and Trey rushed over to help him up.

"Are you okay?" Trey asked concerned and Caius gave him a nod.

"I'm alright just need an icepack when we get back to the Normandy" he said with a wince as he slightly limped to the door.

"Your browplate is bleeding, I can put some medigel on it" Sela offered as she walked beside him and Caius shook his head.

"Maybe later I just want to get out here" he grumbled as he made his way down the hallway and to the first large room they entered. His parents were already there along with Barbar and Kaiden. Barbar was currently setting up the bomb while his parents were in the corner quietly arguing. Or as they would like to put it a "disagreement." Kaidan on the other hand was near Barbar and had glanced at his parents with a slight smirk. The move had rubbed Caius the wrong way but with the pounding in his head and his sore body from being practically thrown across the room he was going to ignore it, for now.

"All set" Barbar called out just before Wrex, Tali, and Rina walked into the room.

"What happened to you? You look like hell" Rina asked when she saw the state Caius was in.

"Well I was thrown across the room twice by some explosions from a very large mech. The first time a table landed on me and the second I hit a wall so yeah I'm a bit sore with a headache." Rina winced at the reveal and Tali came close to inspect the cut on his browplate.

"It looks like there's a little piece of glass in there so you really need to put medigel on it" Tali commented as she gestured at the cut and Caius waved her off.

"It's fine I'll clean it up on the shuttle" Caius sighed in response since he didn't like it when Tali or his mother fussed over him.

"We should head out now since we only have ten minutes before this blows up" Barbar warned and they all turned to leave quickly so they could get ahead of the explosion. As they walked quickly out of the building Caius noticed that his parents were keeping a certain distance from each other. It usually wouldn't really bother him since he knew that they needed their own space after an argument, plus it wasn't like they argued all the time. Hell he knew first hand from his tiffs with Lana how important space was. However, this time really got under a skin because of Kaidan's smirk earlier and now the human male was inching his way towards Jane's side. Caius hanged back so he would smoothly be at her side unlike Kaidan.

"So mom I was wondering if Lana and I should find out the gender of the baby through blood work or ultrasound? Since I want to make Amanda's job easier given the fact that she's never tracked a turian pregnancy." Caius asked and Jane chuckled softly as she thought it over before responding.

"Oh definately blood work, it would be hard to tell if it's a boy since male turian infants don't have that signature long fringe and your loins are hidden behind plates. How has the pregnancy been for Lana by the way?" Jane asked and Caius let out a long sigh.

"Not very good, she throws up practically every morning and she gets frustrated when she feels tired during the day since she can't concentrate on work and has to take a nap or else she'll fall asleep on the console."

"Aw poor thing, Garrus told me how he saw her almost bang her head on the console from falling asleep. Maybe I should talk to her to give her some advice." Jane suggested.

"Please do, I'm not the best help in that situation and I'm afraid that if I try to talk to her about it she'll just throw a pot at me. Or another thing I wanted to ask you…"

Caius continued to ask his mother about Lana's pregnancy and baby stuff for the little one to keep Kaidan from trying to swoop in on his mother. Jane was more than happy to talk about her unborn grandchild and Caius had to hold in his smirk when he saw the disappointed look on Kaiden's face as they headed to the shuttle.

* * *

Caius groaned as he opened the freezer to get an icepack when he felt his headache come back with a vengeance, right now all he wanted to do was lay down but he still had reports to do. Holding the icepack to his head he shuffled to his room but stopped when he saw Lana asleep on the bed clutching his pillow. Impressed that she managed to find a loophole to their little bed curse as he quietly made his way to the terminal so he wouldn't wake her. With a soft sigh, he rested the icepack on top of his head before he reluctantly began to work on the reports, not stopping until he heard a rustle of sheets behind him and turned around. Lana was sitting up in bed with a smile until she saw the icepack and cut on his browplate.

"What the hell happened?" she asked with a frown and he shrugged.

"A heavy mech kind of threw me around a couple of times;" he said in a nonchalant tone so he wouldn't worry her.

"And what are you doing now?"

"Reports."

"Even though your head is hurting?"

"Yep" Caius replied and Lana rolled her eyes before getting up from the bed. Grabbing the back of his chair before she pulled it towards the bed.

"The hell? Have you been working on your arms?" He asked when he saw her hardly struggling to pull him.

"A little, I've been doing some push ups since I'm forbidden to lift anything but I'm glad it's still paying off. I don't want to get fat anywhere else other than my belly" Lana replied with a huff as she let go of the chair.

"You're not getting fat it's just the little one growing;" Caius said with a hum as he poked her mostly flat belly with his finger to empathize his point. Lana shook her head with a sigh as she gestured to the bed.

"Thank you now go to bed so you can rest your head;" She said and Caius glanced at the terminal.

"But I-" he started to protest before he was cut off by her.

"The reports aren't going anywhere and you can't write them when your head is pounding" Lana stated and he sighed softly before getting up to climb into bed, too sore to fight on the issue any longer. She adjusted his ice pack so it was on his forehead before putting a hand on his arm.

"Do you need anything?" She asked softly and he nodded before gesturing to her nightstand.

"Your lotion since your pillow is not going to be enough for me. Please, and thank you." Caius requested with a hum and she chuckled softly before going to her nightstand to hand him the lotion. He immediately put some on his pillow and let out a wistful sigh when he laid back down.

"Ah much better" Caius hummed.

"Anything else? Maybe some water or-" Lana asked but was his turn to cut her off.

"I'll be okay Lana" Caius reassured her and she nodded.

"Okay if there's anything else just let me know;" she said softly before turning to leave. He breathed in her lotion on his pillow as he mentally added her to the list of fussing mothers.

* * *

*By the way I am so sorry for taking so long to post another chapter DX. I had to move and get settled in and it didn't help that I had a bit of a writers block but I'll try to make it up to guys with some one shots. If that helps...


	19. Horrible Gut Feeling

Two months. Two months of going to base after base, enduring firefights, and getting thrown everywhere from explosions or heavy mechs. Enduring two months of chaos created some bruises, and scars were no exception. Caius counted three new scars, the first one was the cut on his brow from their first mission. The second one was a cut on his upper arm when he was knifed by a Palavi soldier in close combat. The third, a cut on his fringe from a sniper who had barely missed his head.

Luckily no one had been severely injured during their missions, the worst one was the last one. When Wrex decided to get ballsy with a heavy mech and broke his arm in the process so now they were down one man.

"So we're going to switch up the teams since Wrex is out. Garrus you'll be with Tali and Trey, Caius you'll be with Kaidan and Sela, and Barbar and Rina you're with me." Jane said as the shuttle took off and Garrus immediately glanced at her with narrowed eyes with his mandibles tight against his face. Thankfully he decided to stay quiet but Caius could hear the anger in his sub vocals and by the way Trey was shifting his feet he could definitely hear it too. It was extremely rare when his mother decided not to have Garrus on her team. The only reason for that was if she was really angry with him. Not the kind of anger you have after an argument with your spouse but the kind after you have a huge fight. He had only seen them have a huge fight a couple times in his lifetime and that was when he was little. The only way he could get them to stop screaming at each other was if he started keening but being twenty-three years old that was definitely not going to work.

Everyone had stayed quiet throughout the shuttle ride since the tension was so thick in the air it was almost suffocating, so when the shuttle finally landed everyone quickly got out to put some distance between themselves and the brooding couple.

"So we're not bringing our own bomb because…" Caius trailed off in question before Jane replied.

"We won't need one because we can self-destruct the base but it's going to take three people. The consoles are most likely in three different locations."

"Ah, that makes sense" Caius agreed as the group started making their way towards the base. There was a lot of bright, alien trees in their path with some pretty thick branches and low enough that they had to be pushed out of the way. Caius was right behind his moody father so when Garrus angrily pushed a branch out of his way it flung back with furious force and right into Caius's unprotected eye. The sickening snap of the branch making contact made everyone turn to see Caius bending over holding a hand to his poor eye that was not protected by his visor.

"Spirits! I'm sorry Caius! I didn't realize you were right behind me!" Garrus trilled as he started fussing over his son. Caius inhaled sharply since his whole eye was burning in pain and waved him off.

"It's fine" Caius reassured quietly as his mother stomped over.

"Jesus Garrus you need to be more careful! You could've taken his eye out!" Jane snapped as she also started fussing over Caius and Garrus growled at her.

"No shit! And I already said I was sorry!" Garrus hissed and Jane clenched her fists.

"Watch it Vakarian" Jane growled and Garrus snorted.

"You're a Vakarian too if I might add. Or did you forget when your boy toy came back into the picture?" In a flash of movement, Jane punched Garrus square in the jaw making the turian stumble back a bit. Caius could see blue surround his mother's fists and he immediately wrapped his arms around her in moving her away from his father before she could swing again. Which she looked like she was just about to do.

"Let go of me!" Jane growled out as she struggled in his hold before she elbowed him in the side. Caius hissed in pain but kept his strong hold as he dragged her off, when he was sure they were far enough he let go of her.

"Look I don't know what's going on between you two but you guys a jeopardizing the mission!" Caius hissed and Jane crossed his arms.

"Did you hear what he said to me?!" Jane scoffed.

"Of course I heard what he said and I'm going to talk to him about it but you need calm down and be professional until we get back to the ship. Then you guys can spar all you want and don't give me that look I'm a Spectre just like you so this does not count as insubordination." Caius stated and Jane glanced away.

"Fine" Jane muttered and Caius turned to walk over to his father.

"Dad really?" Caius said with exasperation while Garrus was moving his jaw and lightly touched it.

"Damn she got me good" Garrus commented quietly and Caius sighed as he rubbed his face.

"Alright so you're going to stay all the way in the back of the group while mom stays in the front so we don't have the mishap again," Caius said and Garrus gave him a frown.

"What?" Garrus scoffed and Caius arched an eyebrow.

"What did mom deck your ears too? You guys are jeopardizing the mission with your little tiff so I'm keeping you guys separated, and what the hell is wrong with you saying that to mom?" Caius asked in disbelief as he crossed his arms.

"I know and I'm sorry. It just slipped out" Garrus grumbled out as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to" Caius pointed out and stopped his father when he moved to go to Jane. "Not now, do it when we get back to the ship fool," Caius said with a sigh and Garrus clicked in annoyance as he reluctantly stayed where he was. Caius rubbed his temple before he turned to keep going to the base. Thankfully the stinging in his eye was mostly gone now but not the headache that was caused by his parents.

"Oh Spirits and Lord please work together so you could give me the patience I need to handle my crazy parents" Caius sighed to himself and Jane rolled her eyes at him but stayed quiet even though there was a red dot slowly making its way towards-

"Mom! Get down!" Caius trilled as he pushed Jane behind a rock just before bullets started raining down on them. Thankfully Trey had provided a blue shield for them and for the rest of the group in time until they all found cover.

Well, the good news was that they had found the base rather quickly but the bad news was that there were snipers along the walls. Caius, Rina, and Garrus had to race to take them down before they had a chance to take down any of them. Caius heard Rina gasp and he glanced over to see a fresh scratch on the left side of her jaw. She touched it before she let out an angry scream and switched to her assault rifle to reign her bullets down on the sniper he was assuming provided that scratch. With the way, Rina was going crazy with her assault rifle and Trey using his powerful shockwave it wasn't long before the area was cleared.

"That asshole!" Rina shouted in frustration as she touched her scratch again before she stomped over to Caius. "Is it going to scar?" she asked worriedly as she pointed at the scratch. In reality, it wasn't deep enough to create a scar but just to give her hell he winced.

"It's really deep so yeah definitely going to scar" Caius said while cringing and Rina gasped.

"What?!" Rina shouted out as she covered her face.

"I didn't know you were that vain Rina" Caius commented and Rina gave him a glare.

"I wouldn't be if I was middle-aged but I'm only 20 damn it. I need to keep this face flawless!" Rina expressed with a pout and Caius rolled his eyes.

"It's not deep enough to scar, I just lied to give you a hard time since that's my job and joy" Caius confessed with a hum before Rina punched him the throat and he started coughing/choking.

"Ass!" Rina huffed out as she stomped off and Caius's coughing had started to subside while Tali and Sela were busy opening the door. Trey was trying to hold in his laughter as he opened a bag of dextro chips and Caius arched a brow plate.

"Chips? You usually go for the bars after using that much of your biotics" Caius commented curiously though his voice was a bit raspy from the punch. Trey held up the empty protein bar wrapper as he dumped the chips into his mouth.

"Already gone and I wanted something to get that bitter taste out of my mouth. Never going for that flavor again" Trey said with a shudder and Caius smirked.

"I can already see you cleaning out the fridge when we get back" Caius teased and Trey stretched before responding.

"Well it won't be so bad since I won't have to worry about you rolling all over the place like an Armadillo and I have to shield you" Trey teased back and Caius raised his browplates.

"How did you know about an armadillo? That's an Earth animal.' Caius asked curiously and Trey gestured at Sela with a tilt of his head.

"We were talking and she was telling me about some of her favorite animals from Earth and she showed me that leather ball," Trey said and Caius was about to reply until he heard the familiar sound of gunfire. Caius immediately took cover while Trey activated a shield for Tali and Sela who were right in front of the firefight. Both quarians sent in drones which gave Caius a chance to set up his sniper so he could take out any of the exposed soldiers. They were all doing pretty well for some time before the Palavi soldiers started to crowd around the entrance putting Sela and Tali at risk. Trey shielded both females quarians to give them a chance to get back and into cover before Jane used her shock wave. The Palavi soldiers tried to get out of the way but the violet pulses were too fast and threw them in different directions hard. Giving their group the opportunity to finish them off while they were still down. The process was quick since most of the soldiers had died on impact from the shockwave.

Tali brought up a hologram of the building on her omni tool and pointed at three consoles.

"From my research, these consoles will activate the self-destruct once you get through the security and activate it. The farthest one is up ahead and is the main console." Tali explained and Caius hummed in thought.

"So it would be best to send in the team with the strongest biotic to handle the high security this will most likely have. So Trey-" Caius started but was interrupted by Kaidan.

"We can do it" he stated and everyone turned to look at him. Caius arched a browplate.

"Are you sure about that? Because I've seen you get your headaches on the field" Caius asked and Kaidan frowned.

"Yes I'm sure, I didn't use much of my biotics before for that reason" Kaidan responded and Caius wasn't convinced. It really bothered him that Kaidan's headaches were unpredictable, it didn't matter to him before because he wasn't in a squad with Kaidan before and when he did get the headaches Trey or his mother would cover up any problems that came along when Kaidan was basically down. He was worried about Sela's safety, the twins were like sisters to him and even though they sometimes got on his nerves and pissed him off he would die for them in a heartbeat. There was also this really bad gut feeling that was practically blaring the warning. As much as he didn't want to rely on Kaidan he didn't want to argue with him because this was not the time and place. After giving both of his parents a little lecture on their behavior earlier he wasn't going to be a hypocrite and be unprofessional. So with sigh, Caius nodded.

"Alright then, we'll meet you guys back here," Caius said quietly as he walked on ahead to the doors that would lead them to the console.

As soon as the doors closed behind their squad Caius turned to Kaidan.

"As soon as Sela starts to work on the console they are going to target her immediately, because we have to rely on your biotics which is questionable theses days. You will make sure she does not get hurt in any way because she even get's as much as a scratch I will tear out your implant and keep in mind I haven't filed my talons in a couple of months. Do I make myself clear?" Caius stated with a growl, Kaidan gave him a glare but nodded.

"Good," Caius said quietly before he turned to head to the room the console was in with Sela and Kaidan.

Surprisingly they didn't have any trouble getting to the location of the room, even when Caius had his assault rifle out and carefully entered the room with the main console. This definitely felt like a trap but they had to keep going with the mission.

"Stay on your guard" Caius warned and kept his gun out as he made his way to the console with Sela. The console was on a high platform and with Sela struggling to climb up and he put his gun away and hauled her up on the platform as if she weighed nothing. Sela was startled by the help before she pouted when he climbed up with ease.

"No fair...I could've climbed up by myself!" Sela huffed and Caius tsked.

"Sorry munchkin but it was sad to watch and it would've taken all day."

Sela rolled her eyes at his comment before she headed to the console and Caius immediately took his assault rifle out. After some time his comm cut on and his mother's voice came through.

"The two consoles are set," Jane said through the comm.

"Alright ours should be done soon" Caius responded just before the doors opened and in came in a large group of Palavi soldiers. Caius immediately took cover and switched to his sniper. He busied himself with keeping the soldiers far away from Sela as much as possible. Killing any that got too close. Kaidan was using his biotics and Caius prayed that he wouldn't get a headache right in the middle of this firefight.

As much as Caius tried to keep them at bay their large numbers were starting to overwhelm them along with a red dot making its way over to Sela.

"Kaidan we need the shield now!" Caius called out before the shield was put up, he felt relieved until a few moments later the shield dissipated and Kaidan was clutching his head on the ground. Caius growled in frustration as he let out a string of curses and turned to Sela.

"Sela get down!" Caius yelled though Sela couldn't hear him, not only was she focused on her task but the amount of gunfire in the large room overpowered his voice. Caius tried to find the sniper but every time he peeked his head out they would try to blow it off with their bullets. He began to panic when he saw the red dot getting closer to Sela from afar. He screamed her name at the top of his lungs but she still couldn't hear him and the dot was now going up her body. Without thinking Caius rolled out of his cover and rushed towards her. He wasn't focused on anything else but the dot that was currently going up her neck and resting on the back of her head.

"No!" Caius yelled as he launched himself at her and tackling her just he heard the familiar sound of a sniper going off. They rolled before separating when they landed on the ground again. Caius looked over at Sela who was looking around in confusion but alive. Caius let out a sigh of relief as he moved to sit up only to feel a sharp pain in his left side. He hissed in pain as he clutched his side and removed his hand, seeing it covered in blue.

"Caius!' Sela gasped when she saw that he was bleeding from his side. Caius gave her a tight reassuring smile. "I'm okay Sela I have

"I'm okay Sela I have medigel, did you finish with activating the console?" Caius asked tightly since he was in pain and Sela shook her head.

"N-no but I was almost done," Sela said in a shaky tone as Caius fished out his medigel.

"Okay, send out a drone to hold them off while I call for backup," Caius said calmly and Sela nodded meekly, her hand shaking as she activated her drone.

Caius quickly applied the medigel before he turned on his comm.

"We need back up, Kaidan had another headache episode and we're getting overrun here" Caius grunted out.

"Are you okay?" Garrus asked worriedly since it was clear to him his son was in pain.

"Yeah, they just got a lucky hit in that's all" Caius replied in a nonchalant tone to try to play it off and not worry them.

"That's the same exact thing your father would say, I already heard it a dozen times in the past" Jane drawled out before the comm cut out. Caius groaned as he moved so he was crouched behind a crate. He used his assault rifle to hold off the soldiers since right now he couldn't be focused enough for the sniper. The pain hadn't let up with the medigel which meant the wound was deep and the blood had only slowed down a little.

Luckily he soon saw his parents and Trey come through the entrance, immediately Trey used his shockwave before shielding Jane and Garrus has they advanced. Caius turned to Sela who was still shaking and staring at his wound.

"Sela finish with the console, I'm going to be alright it's just a scratch" Caius reassured though Sela gave him a glare.

"That's not a scratch!"She snapped and Caius sighed.

"Sela take a deep breath and relax, backup is here and my eyes are still open so I need you to finish the console. Please."

Sela breathed in and out with a nod before she went over to the console, pausing to turn her head towards him.

"Thank you, Caius."

"You're welcome munchkin," Caius said with a purr before he peeked up out of cover to shoot the asshole that almost blew up Sela's head. He was able to easily locate him since the sniper was focusing on his parents and with a few shots, the sniper collapsed. The few soldiers left were quickly obliterated by Trey with his biotics. With no more enemies around Caius moved to stand up or well tried to. He used a rail to support him as he clutched his side and saw his parents rushing over to him. Kaidan stood up from his cover but he was still clutching his head.

"The hell happened?!" Jane demanded as she moved his hand to check the wound.

"The sniper was about to kill Sela and I pushed her out of the way in time" Caius responded with a wince.

"Why didn't you wait for Kaidan to put up a shield?" Garrus asked and Caius sighed.

"Because that's when Kaidan got his headache, the shield only lasted a few seconds" Caius explained until the voice of an AI came through one Sela stepped away from the console.

"Two minutes before self-destruct" the AI announced.

Caius cursed and stood up fully without any support from the railing but he swayed when a wave of dizziness washed over him.

"We can carry you if you can't-" Jane started to say but stopped when Caius shook his head.

"No, we won't get there in time. I'm fine so let's just go" Caius said before he hopped off the platform and started to run with his parents, Sela, Trey, and Kaidan. He started to lag behind since every time he took a step it felt like someone was stabbing him in his side but the adrenaline kept him going. He grew concerned when he felt that his blood flow increased to the point it was running down his whole leg but he still continued to run as fast he could. The AI had announced there were thirty seconds left when they had reached the entrance. The shuttle was already waiting in front of the entrance along with everyone else inside and their little group quickly entered the shuttle. Garrus closed the door immediately before the shuttle began to ascend.

Caius was leaning against the wall trying to catch his breath until he began to feel weak, the voices around him sounded distant, not even comprehending what they were saying. Soon his legs finally gave out and he collapsed on the ground with a hard thud. Caius could see the fear in everyone's faces, especially in his parents when they crouched down next to him. Tali ripped off her hood and gave it to Garrus who tied it around Caius's waist tightly to stop the bleeding.

"He's going into shock" Garrus informed since he could see from his visor that Caius was breathing rapidly and his body temperature was starting to decrease. Garrus was trying to be strong for Jane since he could see that she was slightly shaking. The only other time he had seen her like this was when Palavi was close to executing their son. Even when Garrus himself was badly hurt she had been calm the whole time.

"Don't close your eyes Caius keep them open. We're almost there just hang on…" Jane said wearily when she saw his eyes blinking slowly. She wanted to cry at how helpless she felt at the moment, she prayed for him to make it through this. Nothing would feel more horrible than to lose her son and this feeling she had...she wouldn't it on her worst enemy.

"Are we almost to the Normandy?!" Garrus snapped at the pilot who nodded.

"Yes we're boarding now" the pilot replied.

As much as Caius tried to stay awake and fight he had lost too much blood. His body was forcing him to shut down and for the first time in his career as a Spectre he feared death. If this happened to him a couple years ago he wouldn't care, but he had Lana and now a baby on the way. He didn't want to leave when his life just started again. He fought to keep them open but eventually, darkness clouded over his eyes.

"No no no. Come on Caius!" Jane said desperately when Caius closed his eyes.

"His vitals are weak but their steady Jane. It's going to be okay" Garrus tried to reassure his wife and she glanced at him just as the shuttle landed.

"I already sent out a message to Amanda in advance" Tali stated as Garrus and Trey put each of Caius's arms over their shoulders to carry him. Barbar opened up the door and both turians quickly rushed to the elevator with Jane right behind them. It felt like forever for the elevator doors to open again and once they did Amanda already had the medbay doors opened.

"Lay him on the exam table and I'll need everyone to leave." She stated as she got her tools ready. Garrus and Trey laid Caius carefully on the table before leaving to give Amanda space to work.

Jane was standing outside and Garrus went over to his mate to hug her which she returned without hesitation.

"Do you guys need anything?" Trey asked softly and Garrus shook his head.

"No we're okay thanks. Can you let Lana know what's going on?" Garrus asked and Trey nodded before he went into the elevator to head to the CIC center.

When he arrived he could hear Lana and Joker bantering.

"That's perfect name if the kid is a boy, Jeff."

"No Joker I'm not naming my child Jeff, plus Caius and I already thought of a name for a boy and a girl."

"Yeah but- Oh hey Trey" Joker greeted and Lana glanced at him with a smile.

"Hey Trey" she then gave him a worried look when she saw a sad look on his face "What's wrong?" she asked in a weary tone.

"It's Caius. He was hurt bad on the mission and is in the medbay now." Trey said quietly and Lana immediately stood up. Her small belly definitely showing off her pregnancy.

"How bad is it?" She asked in a shaky tone and Trey sighed.

"A sniper got him good on his left side" Trey responded solemnly. Lana shook her head and immediately made her way to the elevator to head to the crew deck. However, when the doors opened she was shocked to see Kaidan fly back across the room and hit the wall with a hard thud. Jane was surrounded in blue with fury in her eyes.

"You had one job to do Alenko! You should've not offered to take that room if you weren't sure about your headaches! You put my son in danger! He's on that table because of you!" she screamed as she moved her hand to send another warp. Garrus however grabbed her arm and held it down as he glanced at Kaidan.

"Get the hell out of here Alenko before I change my mind and let her tear you to pieces" Garrus growled and Kaidan quickly stepped into the elevator just as Lana exited it.

"The hell Garrus! You're buddy buddy with him now?!" Jane snapped as she pulled her arm away from him.

"Believe me I'm going to kick his ass later when I know for sure our son is okay but at the rate you were slamming him around with your biotics you were going to blow a hole in the ship" Garrus responded calmly before he glanced at Lana when he noticed her presence.

"What happened on the mission?" Lana asked quietly as she went over to them.

"Sela would've of been killed by a sniper if Caius hadn't pushed her out of the way in time. He got hit in the side in the process." Garrus responded solemnly.

"Is he going to make it?" Lana asked, her voice wavering and Jane had tears in her eyes.

"To be honest I don't know. The bullet was deep and he lost consciousness on the shuttle" Jane responded as tears fell down her cheeks. Lana felt numb as she sat down at the mess hall table before she started to keen. Jane sat down next to her and began to cry as she hugged Lana. Garrus sucked in a shaky breath as he sat next to the medbay doors. Praying to the Spirits for his son to make it. They had done what the could on the shuttle, all they could do now was wait.


	20. It's a

"So Lana you never told us about your family" Jane spoke up to break the silence they had been having for the last couple of hours. Lana glanced up at her and furrowed her browplates.

"Oh yeah, I never did tell you about them. Well, I'm an only child since my mother died in childbirth, my father took care of me the best he could since he had to work two jobs to support us but when I was fifteen and in boot camp, he died in a skycar accident." Lana finished softly and Jane felt horrible for asking about her family at a time like this.

"Oh, Lana I'm so sorry I didn't think-" Jane started to apologize but Lana shook her head to stop her.

"You didn't know it's not your fault, I don't have any other family that I know of which is expected since the Ramis clan is very low in the hierarchy," Lana said and Jane arched an eyebrow.

"How low if you don't mind me asking?" Jane asked curiously.

"I've never heard of the Ramis clan so that means very low, by the way Lana ignore what people are going to say" Garrus reassured and Jane frowned.

"What do you mean? What the hell are they going to say about her?"

"Well the Vakerian clan was already high in the hierarchy but because of my service, yours since you're technically part of it too, and Caius's we've moved up higher so other turians will think that she mated with Caius in order to move up the hierarchy. Which is obviously not the case but you know how high ranking turian snobs can be" Garrus explained.

"Huh, so basically they would think of her as a gold digger?" Jane asked and Garrus nodded.

"Um...what's a gold digger?" Lana asked curiously and Jane shook her head.

"It's a name humans call others who marry just to gain their spouse's fortune but I know you're not like that," Jane reassured and Lana gave her a smile until their heard the med bay doors swoosh open.

All three of them stood up immediately when Amanda walked out, blue splats lightly covered her uniform but she had a smile on.

"He's going to be okay, it was a really close call but he's awake."

All three of them sighed in relief and it was like a whole weight had been lifted from their shoulders, the room even seemed to light up.

"Can we seem him?" Jane asked softly and Amanda chuckled softly before she moved to the side and gestured for them to go in. Without a moment of hesitation, they entered the med bay and there was the welcoming sight of a tired but awake Caius. When he heard them come in he turned his head to look at them, his mandibles flaring into a small smile.

"Hey, hope I wasn't too heavy to carry but-" Caius was going to continue but stopped when they all hugged him, careful not to touch his wound. He wasn't surprised that Lana was keening softly but when he heard a sniff from his mother and a quiet keen from his father he looked at them with raised brows plates.

"You're crying too? Even you dad?" Caius asked in surprise and Garrus lightly flicked Caius's fringe.

"You damn right I am! You almost died for Spirits sake!" Garrus huffed as he continued to hug him.

"Um...one of you is hugging a little too tightly because I'm experiencing some pain at the side" Caius commented and they all backed off away from him with a muttered apology.

"So how are you feeling?" Jane asked with concern as she sat on the edge of the exam bed and Caius rubbed the back of his neck.

"I feel a bit weak and my back is sore from laying here so long in a not so turian friendly bed but I've felt worse and have slept in worse places." He responded with a shrug. Lana mandibles spread into a smile and she touched foreheads with Caius affectionately which he eagerly returned.

"Well we will see if we can get you back into a turian bed by the end of the day but thank the spirits that you're just experiencing a sore back from that experience," Lana said with a hum before Jane pulled up her omni tool.

"Ah I almost forgot that the twins begged me to keep them updated on your health so let me just-" Jane didn't get to finish as the doors swooshed open and two eager female quarians came rushing over to the exam bed. Lana and Jane made sure to move away from the bed in time as the girls went to each side of the bed before wrapping their arms around Caius tightly, each sister letting out a sniffle. Caius rolled his eyes with a smile before patting their backs.

"No need for tears I'm alright and you're making it hard to breathe so…" Rina and Sela wiped their eyes before moving back.

"You almost lost your life to save mine, It's my fault! I should have been aware!" Sela cried out followed by a sob. Caius gestured for the girls to sit next to him which they did with slouched shoulders.

"It wasn't your fault Sela if anything it was mine in a way, I should have planned better so no one got hurt but I panicked, I'm trained for those situations and I have been at it for a few years. You guys aren't used to that environment for long periods of time and only fought when you had to which is why it's my responsibility to watch out for you guys. I need to watch out for everyone on this ship but they've been shot before so they're not too much of a concern. I'm alive and well so there's no need to dwell on it. Kay?" Caius explained gently and the girls gave him a nod. Tali then decided to come forward after she had given the girls their time with Caius to give him a hug and he pleasantly sighed.

"Wow so much hugging today."

Everyone on the ship had come to check on Caius except for Kaiden which was not surprising because he was most likely afraid of Jane trying to rip his balls off. Her words, not his. Caius was not only surprised but touched at how many people came to visit when they were on their breaks. Hell Barbar and Trey had worked overtime so they could stay with him longer and of course, his parents and Lana had stayed with him most of the day. They still had work so they catched up on their duties when the room was crowded before coming back an hour or two later when it had cleared out. Now it was dinner time and the main gang was here eating with him.

"Man I could go for some noodles" Caius huffed out as picked at the brown mush on his plate.

"Same, damn I hope they didn't destroy that noodle place back on the Citadel" Garrus grumbled.

"After all this time why are you now reluctantly eating the food, military food is always crap, especially the dextro…" Tali pointed out as she ate.

"Not when one of the guys cook, the least they could do is add some food coloring to make it more appealing instead of it looking like a pyjak took a shit on my plate" Caius sighed as the doors swooshed open and Amanda came in with a mug in one hand and a thin file in the other.

"Oh! I'm glad you guys are all here because I have the results of the baby's gender and I thought you all would want to hear it."

"Betting time! I'm going with boy!" Wrex called out and Caius gave him a frown.

"You're not betting on my kid," Caius said as he crossed his arms and Wrex waved him off.

"Hey it's tradition, we did that when Jane was pregnant, Tali until we found she was having twins then it was truly a gamble, and with Bakara so shut it until everyone has placed their bets though the parents aren't allowed too." Wrex huffed out and Garrus raised his hand.

"Going with girl."

"Girl" Trey called out

"Girl" Barbar agreed, Jane and Tali looked at Lana's stomach before Jane spoke for them both.

"Boy, do either of you have a preference?" she asked curiously and Caius shrugged.  
"It doesn't matter to me as long as it's healthy" Caius and Garrus scoffed.

"Come on Caius we all have a slight preference, I wanted a boy and here you are so talk."

"Tch fine I may slightly prefer for it to be a girl" Caius admitted softly and Lana looked at him with raised brow plates.

"A girl? I half-expected for you to want a boy" Lana said and Caius shrugged with a small smile.

"A boy would be nice but I would like a little girl to spoil to be honest," Caius said honestly and that earned awws from all the females in the room. Caius rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and cleared his throat.

"So Amanda what are the results?" Caius asked to change the subject and Amanda chuckled softly as she opened the file.

"Alrighty, drumroll please!" Amanda hummed out and everyone except for the soon to be parents patted a surface for a drumroll effect as Amanda cleared her throat. "So this precious baby is a...boy!"

Everyone whooped at the news and Caius was staring at Amanda in surprise. A boy huh? No girl yet but he was still happy about it. He looked forward to teaching his son hand to hand combat, using a gun. Of course, if it was a girl he would still be teaching her the same things but all in due time. That is if he was able to convince Lana for them to have more children but that would be saved for the future. They were going to have a bouncing baby boy and judging by everyone's reactions it was definitely going to bring up their morale. The prospect of seeing a new young life tended to give people hope. It personally gave him the drive to end this chaos, he didn't want to raise his son in a universe that was fighting over a stupid artifact. Living on ships because of it and never enjoying the open freedom of being in a city or town. Not to mention having a nice warm meal instead of sloppy military food.

"Pay up losers" Tali snickered and the two turians along with Barbar groaned as they brought up their omi tools to pay their loss.

"Well, now we can pick out a name for the baby" Lana commented with a smile just before everyone started talking about possible boy names.

"Woah! Woah! Woah! stop with your suggestions because it's just going to be Lana and I coming up with baby names for our son" Caius said while emphasizing 'our' so they got the message. His parents give him a little pout before his mother's omni tool lit up with an incoming message and she opened it excitedly.

"Oh! we're going to have to make a stop at Tuchanka because Grunt is coming on board!" Jane said eagerly and Caius groaned as he facepalmed himself.

"Oh come on mom not him!" Caius complained and Jane frowned.

"What's the problem?"

"The problem is that I always have to compete with him even though I was the one was in your womb for seven months! You baby him so much everytime he visits that it's sickening!"

"Aww, are you jealous? Here I can baby you too" Jane said with a smirk as she walked over to him and gave her son kisses on his forehead. Caius clicked in annoyance as he pushed her away.

"That's not what I meant mom and no I'm not jealous!" Caius said defensively and everyone in the room snickered much to his annoyance.

"Well, either way, he's still coming on board, we need him since you'll be incapacitated for a while so get used to it Caius."

"Goddamit!"

 **Sorry for the looong wait! I had been busy with work, school, and babysiting so I had little time to work on this but it's back! I'll make up to guys with a short story along with a chapter dedicated to the new addition :D! Again thank you guys for taking the time to read!**


	21. Niren

"I think you guys should really take a look at the directions…" Lana pointed out as she held up the instructions on how to put the crib together.

"No we got this" Caius huffed out as he picked up another piece of the crib and gave it a blank stare as Garrus growled.

"I don't remember cribs being this damn complicated to put together."

"It really isn't but you dumbasses are putting it together all wrong" Grunt commented as he glanced at the directions.

"Shut up Grunt" Caius grumbled as he picked up another piece of the crib and rubbed the back of his neck "Um dad where do you suppose this would go to…" Caius asked and Garrus looked at the piece in confusion.

"Um maybe it goes here?" Garrus questioned and Grunt shook his head as he held out his hand to Lana.

"Can I have the instructions?"

"Can I have the instructions…" Jane trailed off as she waited for the tank-bred krogan to finish.

"Please…" Grunt said politely and with a chuckle, Lana handed him the instructions and Jane patted the krogan's head with an approving smile. Grunt had a smug look on his face as he went over to the turians to put together the crib the right way.

"Kissass" Caius muttered to Grunt and the krogan scoffed.

"You're just jealous that battlemaster favors me over you."

"She does not, I'm the one that spent seven months in her womb so that's an automatic favor to me. Her actual son."

"I've known her longer than you've been alive."

"Oh yeah? Well I'm giving her a grandson so get on my level bitch."

Grunt thought it over for a moment before turning to Wrex who had come into the room.

"Wrex do you have a female krogan available for me to breed with?"

Caius huffed at Grunt's comment before glancing at Lana who crossed her arms with a shake of her head.

"Oh no. I am not bearing a bunch of children so you could compete with him."

Caius gave her a little pout "Damn it."

* * *

Caius was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night when he felt something soft whack him in the face.

"What was that for?" Caius questioned his mate as he rubbed his face.

"The baby!" Lana said through clenched teeth and Caius was still half asleep so he asked her with a yawn.

"What about him?"

"I'm in labor you idiot my water broke!" Lana growled as she whacked him with the pillow again. Once he registered what she was saying and the fact that the bed was wet he scrambled out of bed. Tripping when the sheet caught his spur, by the time he got up from the floor Lana was already out of bed and grimacing in pain.

"Okay okay um...just breathe and uh…" Caius stuttered in a tone that suggested he was secretly freaking out. Lana would have laughed at the fact that Caius Vakarian can be so cool and collected during missions. Even when they're surrounded by enemies from all sides yet he's here pacing back and forth with a panicked look over the birth of their child, which would have made her laugh but currently, there was a rather persistent little turian kicking her. Lana rolled her eyes when the last contraction subsided and she was able to speak without grimacing.

"Let Amanda know and your parents" Lana sighed out.

"Right! Um don't move I'll be right back!" Caius said quickly before rushing out of the room. Lana shook her head with a sigh "This is going to be a long night."

* * *

"Where are the drugs?" Lana groaned as she gripped the sheets while another contraction swept through her. Caius gave her a worried look.

"Um Lana wouldn't it be better for the baby if you-" Caius started to say before Garrus clamped his hand over his son's mouth quickly.

"If you value your mandibles and fringe you will not finish that sentence" Garrus warned before removing his hand.

"But I'm just-" Caius spok up before Garrus whacked him upside the head.

"Learn for me, I made the mistake of making a comment like that when your mother was in labor and she nearly tore off my mandible. Even when I moved to stand far away she threw an ice cube at me and it hit me right in the eye." Garrus said with a sigh as he rubbed his mandible at the memory.

Amanda then came back into the room with a nervous expression as she looked towards Lana

"Lana you're going to hate me for this but I was supposed to pick up the anesthesia that would be safe for turians and especially the baby when we were restocking supplies and I just now realized that we forgot…" Amanda said while biting her bottom lip. Lana rubbed her face with a shake of her head.

"So I have to do this naturally?"

"Yes, I'm so sorry Lana. We were in a rush and I'm usually-"

"It's not your fault Amanda."

"Thanks but I still feel-"  
"It's his!" Lana growled as she threw an ice cube at Caius which soared through the air and hit his nose. Caius yelped at the sudden impact that caught him off guard and clutched his nose as blue seeped through his fingers.

"Shit!" Caius groaned out and Tali was trying to hold in her laughter as she moved to get a towel for him.

"Get acquainted with your hand because we're never having sex again after this!" Lana said with a huff.

"Hehe that's my daughter-in-law!" Jane said proudly with a bright smile. Caius was grumbling to himself as he took the towel from Tali and held it against his nose while making sure to stand far away from Lana.

Lana's labor was long and painful for her which was understandable because this was her first child. Jane and Tali helped Lana get through her contractions and reassure her whenever she felt scared. Not only was Lana grateful for their presence but so was Caius, he wouldn't know what to say to her and was also afraid of another ice cube being thrown at him.

However, when the time came for Lana to actually push Caius was right by her side. Garrus left because not only did he not want it to be stressful for Lana with four people being in a small room while she gave birth but he didn't want to see anything like that again. Seeing one birth was enough for him. Jane and Tali stayed, of course, to help her through it, who was better qualified than his mother and Tali who had twins. Caius was scared for his mate and the baby the whole time he was holding her hand. He kept thinking about what if's and watched the vital signs like a hawk. It would break his heart if he lost either of them but it would break him if he lost both. He silently prayed to the Spirits and God for them to be okay, for his son to be healthy. He didn't stop until he heard a piercing wail, he turned his head in the direction of the sound to see Amanda cradling a baby turian covered in blue blood. With a smile Amanda moved to clean his son while Jane and Tali were congratulating Lana with tears in their eyes. Lana gave them a tired smile but perked up when Amanda came back with the little turian wrapped in a blue blanket. Lana eagerly reached out to her child and Amanda didn't hesitate to hand him over to his mother. Lana beamed down at the sleeping turian while Caius leaned in to get a better look at their son.

"He's beautiful Caius" Lana said softly as she touched her forehead to their son. Caius mandibles flared as he smiled broadly and stroked his son's cheek with the back of his finger.

"I couldn't agree more, he's perfect" Caius said quietly, Tali gazed at the baby adoringly before looking at Caius and Lana.

"What are you going to name him?" Tali asked, Caius and Lana glanced at each other with a smile before Caius looked at his mother and Tali.

"His name is Niren Kanus Vakarian'' Caius said proudly, the girls gasped softly.

"I love it" Jane said with a hum as she looked at Niren lovingly which Tali agreed with a hum of her own.

"It's perfect for him" Lana said with a loving purr before holding Niren out towards Caius.

"Are you sure?" Caius said nervously as he looked at his son.

"Of course, you're his father after all" Lana said with a tired chuckled, Caius looked at Niren nervously before he carefully picked him up. Getting some guidance on how to hold him from his mother which he greatly appreciated since he didn't want to hurt Niren after only a few minutes of fatherhood. Comfortably cradling Niren it was Caius''s chance to get a good look at his features.

Right off the bat, he could tell that Niren took after his mother with beige colored plates. Caius noticed that Niren's fringe had an orange line along the middle of it which made him chuckle. At least it wouldn't be as noticeable as Caius's fringe. Niren had decided then to open his eyes which were a bright emerald green like his father's. Caius smiled down at Niren when he saw him wake.

"So you finally decided to wake up huh?" Caius said with a chuckled and Niren gave him a sleepy chirp. Caius mandibles flared up in a smile before he touched his forehead against Niren's which the baby turian eagerly returned. "Now don't go back to sleep yet because I'm sure your mother would want to see you awake," Caius said with a hum as Niren yawned, Caius reluctantly handed Niren over to Lana and the female had a bright smile on her face when she saw her son awake.

"Hi there…" Lana cooed at Niren and the baby turian let out a happy chirp at seeing his mother. Garrus then peeked into the room and when he saw Niren in Lana's arms he smiled.

"There's my grandson," Garrus said with a hum as he walked over to the bed. Taking a peek at his features Garrus let out a chuckle before looking up at Jane.

"He looks a lot like Caius when he was a baby" Garrues commented pleasantly and Jane let out a small laugh.

"It brings back memories," Jane said softly and everyone continued to coo over young turian. Niren looked around at all of them with happy chirps, clearly enjoying the attention. At one point Niren had looked off into an empty space beside Caius and was reaching out to that space with curious chirps. It puzzled everyone since they glanced to see what he was looking at but found nothing. Through Niren's eyes, however, there was a short male turian looking over Niren with a smile.

* * *

A/N: So sorry it took so long to update, my life has become busier but I'm determined to finish the story (hopefully the updates won't take as long as this one DX) I appreciate you guys reviewing and commenting it always gives me a motivational push and thank you again for taking the time to read my story. Another thing I want to add is that yesterday I created another story based on Assassin's Creed Syndicate (which I've been recently obsessed with :P ) and the pairing is Jacob Frye (the hottie) and the Reader. I was thinking of bringing it here since it's currently on Wattpad but I'm not completely sure so I would greatly appreciate it if you guys let me know if that's something you would be interested in reading or if you would be interested in reading it but have it be changed to an original character instead of the reader perspective. Thoughts, comments, and reviews are greatly appreciated and thank you guys again! :D


	22. Calm before the Storm

"Trying to escape eh?" Caius said in amusement when he saw Niren biting on the bars of his crib. Caius stood up from his desk and picked up Niren gently, cradling him in one arm. "Well your diaper is clean and you don't seem to be tired so...hungry?" Caius said in a thoughtful tone and Niren chirped making Caius laugh softly. "I'll take that as a yes, now we have to be quiet so your mother can sleep" Caius whispered as he glanced at Lana. Who was sound asleep in their bed, Caius left their room and made his way to the mess hall. It was the middle of the night so everyone was asleep wich Caius was glad because after reading the latest reports. He preferred to be alone to his thoughts and it helped to have his son for company despite the fact he was only a baby.

Grabbing a packet of newborn turian pasted from the fridge Caius turned on the hot water from the sink and ran the packet under it to warm it up for Niren. Seeing the packet Niren started to get antsy and Caius rocked him a bit to calm him.

"I know buddy it's almost done, trust me you don't want to eat cold paste, especially the military kind," Caius said with a shiver prompting a chirp from Niren, once the packet was warmed up Caius tore the edge of the packet open with his teeth before feeding the paste to Niren. The young turian gasped onto the edge of it with his mouth and eagerly ate the paste. Luckily Niren's teeth weren't sharp enough to tear through the material of the packet so Caius didn't have to worry about him accidentally swallowing it.

While Niren ate Caius sat down at the table and couldn't help but get lost in his thoughts with the reports he read earlier. The only thing that startled him out of his thoughts was when he heard his mother as she walked to the table.

"You read them," Jane said solemnly as she sat down in front of him, it was more like a statement than a question.

"Ten minutes ago when they came in" Caius stated quietly. Jane sighed before she looked at Niren with a smile.

"May I?"

"Go for it" Caius said reassuringly as he passed Niren over to his mother along the packet. He sat back down with a sigh before rubbing his face with both hands. "It seems like no matter what we do this will still turn into a war over a stupid artifact," Caius said quietly. The reports had stated that there was a suspicion of mutiny over the remaining turian military that was stationed around Thessia. All the spies that were sent to investigate never returned and even the scouts had started to cease communication.

"Maybe but there's also the chance that it could be contained and we could solve this whole mess before a war starts," Jane said in a thoughtful tone.

"How can you be so sure?" Caius asked, skeptical clearly written on his face and Jane shrugged.

"I'm not, but there's always a chance for everything. More than once do numbers blur and it's purely on luck or chance."

Caius sighed and tapped his fingers on the table in thought before speaking up.

"I think we should go back to Thessia and investigate the rumors ourselves since we clearly can't or shouldn't rely on anyone that's stationed there," Caius stated and it was Jane's turn to give him a skeptical look.

"It would take a whole month to get back and by that time the whole mess could be resolved by then."

"What other choice do we have mother? Clearly being out here taking over bases isn't doing anything and they wouldn't send those reports unless there was something to go off of."

"We would need to talk to the council" Jane sighed making Caius roll his eyes and Jane continued "You know we need to, we won't hear the end of it if we don't." Jane then moved Niren to her shoulder to burp him when he was done with his paste.

"Doesn't make the meeting any less bearible" Caius said with a shake of his head, Niren then yawned making Caius stand up so Jane could hand over Niren.

"Well at least try to get some sleep, you look like you haven't been getting any since Niren was born a few days ago," Jane commented as she handed over Niren.

"Isn't that how it's supposed to go? For the first month new parents aren't supposed to get any sleep because the babies raise hell for that whole month." Caius said thoughtfully and Jane just laughed softly.

"Just at least try getting an hour of sleep."

"Yes mother" Caius said as Jane kissed his cheek before walking to the elevator. Caius cradled Niren as he walked back to his room.

Upon entering he saw that Lana was awake and sitting at the foot of the bed, she perked up when she saw him come in before standing up.

"He was hungry and I left to feed him though I think now he's ready to go back to bed" Caius explained as he handed over Niren to Lana. Lana thanked him with a smile before she took their son into her arms and cradled him on her shoulder before lightly bouncing him to put him to sleep.

"Is something wrong? You seem...tense" Lana commented as Caius sat down at his desk.

"No nothing's wrong" Caius tried to reassure as he worked on his report with the bases.

"Don't do that," Lana said softly as she laid Niren down in his crib when he had fallen asleep.

"Do what?"

"You're hiding something."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because I heard you talking to your mother."

That prompted Caius to turn to look at her.

"How much did you hear?" Caius asked quietly and Lana sighed softly.

"I woke up after you left and I was heading to the mess hall since I figured you would be there when I didn't see you or Niren. I stopped myself from walking in when I heard you guys talk about heading back to Thessia."

"Eavesdropping eh?" Caius teased lightly to try to lighten up the mood but Lana crossed her arms.

"I clearly have to if you refuse to tell me what's going on," Lana said with a frown on her face and Caius sighed before standing up. He made sure the door was locked and secured before walking back over the desk to pick up a datapad, pulling up the report on it before handing it over to Lana. She quietly read it and by the facial expressions she was making she definitely took the threat seriously like he did.

"That came in half an hour ago" Caius stated quietly as Lana looked up from the datapad with shock.

"So that's why you want to go back to Thessia...is that the only option though?"

"Lana I don't know what else to do, clearing bases doesn't mean anything if there's a possibility of the whole or at least half the turian fleet turning against us. I don't want the rest of the crew to know about this just yet until we get the details sorted out or until we arrive at Thessia if we go through with the plan. Soon I have to talk with Council about all this which should be peachy." Caius sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Don't worry I won't tell anyone...and peachy?" Lana asked with a puzzled look on her face and Caius softly chuckled.

"Human saying, anyway we should go to bed. I want to get as much sleep as I can before Niren wakes up." Caius said as he eagerly climbed into to bed making Lana smile. She didn't get to say anymore since within seconds she heard Caius snore. Lana checked on Niren before placing the datapad down and climbing into to bed next to Caius.

"Don't worry Caius we'll get through this…" Lana said softly before falling asleep next to her mate.

* * *

"It's amazing how quickly baby turians motor skills develop" Amanda commented in the mess hall when everyone was having breakfast. She was amazed when she saw Niren crawl on the table and even sit up as he ate his packet of paste.

"Well Palaven is a harsh planet so baby turians are quick to develop their motor skills to have a chance of survival against the dangerous predators" Garrus answered as he cleaned Niren's hands with a napkin when he was making a mess with the paste.

"It's like how calves from Earth are able to walk or run minutes after being born" Caius added before taking a bite of his mushy breakfast.

"You should see the baby krogan, they can immediately headbutt after-" Grunt started to say but stopped when a brown blob of paste landed on his eye. Niren was chirping as he clapped his brown paste covered claws and everyone was trying to hold in their laughter. Well everyone except Caius, he was laughing so hard in his seat that he was clutching his stomach.

"Good job Niren!" Caius praised as he picked up his son making the baby purr in happiness.

"Don't praise him for that! He shouldn't be throwing his food" Lana scolded as Caius hugged Niren.

"Maybe but could I at least teach him to throw the food at Grunt?"Caius asked innocently.

"Don't you dare" Grunt huffed out in annoyance making Caius raise his brow plates.

"Why because you know you wouldn't be able to resist this!" Caius stated as he held out Niren to Grunt. The krogan made a poker face at the baby but his eye twitched when Niren chirped at him. After a few moments of Niren cooing at him Grunt shoulders sagged in defeat.

"You win" Grunt grumbled just as Wrex walked by.

"If I couldn't resist you had no chance" Wrex commented as he picked up Niren from Caius and held him as he looked through the fridge for a snack.

"Let's meet with the council Caius, the sooner we get this over with the better" Jane stated as she stood up with a sigh, dreading it as much as he was. Caius clicked in annoyance as he stood and walked with his mother to the war room. The council was already present in the vid-com room.

"So you want to head back to Thessia to investigate these rumors?" Councilor Tevos went straight to the point making Caius chuckle without humor.

"Wow no greeting Tevos? I thought you liked me" Caius said dryly and Sparatus cleared his throat impatiently.

"Back to the issue at hand, why would you want to waste a whole month just to investigate some rumors?" Sparatus questioned and Caius resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Because they don't sound like mere rumors to me, you read the same report we did. They wouldn't be sending us something like that unless there was a real concern." Caius explained but Sparatus only scoffed.

"You think turians would actually betray the whole military?" the turian councilor countered.

"Enough of them betrayed us when they took the Citadel" Caius said with a low growl.

"Enough, Spectres. It is best that you remain clearing the bases while we handle the rumors." Tevos said calmly and Jane shook her head in disbelief.

"You're not handling them well enough because the spies haven't come back and the scouts are ceasing communication." Jane pointed out.

"We will take the necessary measures, goodbye Spectres" was all the salarian councilor said before the council disappeared from the vid comm.

"It doesn't matter how many times you're right mom, they never listen!" Caius growled loudly and Jane simply turned.

"Joker set a course for Thessia" Jane called out.

"Right away Commander" Jokers voice sounded through the ship and Caius arched a browplate at his mother.

"Commander Shepard breaking the rules? Scandalous" Caius teased and Jane shrugged innocently.

"You think this is the first time I didn't listen to the Council?" Jane commented with a laugh as she walked out the war room. Caius shook his head with a chuckle as he followed her out, feeling relieved that they were going to deal with the possible mutiny themselves. He really hoped he was wrong and they really were just rumors.


End file.
